Va. senators add stimulus money to their plans

RICHMOND

Armed with federal stimulus cash, the Virginia Senate passed a budget Wednesday to restore planned cuts to state health care, public safety and education programs.

While the proposed budget breezed out of that chamber on a 36-4 vote, several members cautioned against being lulled into a false sense of fiscal security.

"I cannot stand here and join the Hallelujah chorus," said Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, one of the four dissenting votes on the budget.

"We have one-time stimulus money that has been dropped in our laps by the federal government," Obenshain said, predicting that the economic recession will outlast the effects of the stimulus money. "We'll feel better for a couple of months, but we're not going to feel better in June, July and August."

As is the custom in the budget process, the House later Wednesday rejected the Senate amendments to the budget bill on a 66-22 vote, sending the state budget into a conference committee of delegates and senators. The next step is for the panel to work out a compromise that will be sent back to the entire General Assembly for consideration before its Feb. 28 adjournment.

The Senate budget vote came two days after Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced that state tax revenues had declined $821 million more than projected, increasing the shortfall to $3.7 billion.

Offsetting the revenue decline, Kaine said Monday, was more than $1 billion in federal stimulus funds coming to Virginia to help shore up the state's rising Medicaid costs and help balance the budget.

Last week, the Senate opted to postpone action on its budget until after revised state revenue numbers and stimulus package figures were known. At the same time, the House voted on a budget built around the projected $2.9 billion revenue shortfall announced in December.

Among the proposed cuts restored in the revised Senate budget are:

- About $8.4 million to keep the Southeastern Virginia Training Center in Chesapeake open. The facility is home to 163 mentally disabled residents and employs 460 people. Kaine's budget had called for closing the facility.

- Nearly $600,000 in funding to Old Dominion University's Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center.

- Roughly $3.3 million to fund State Police trooper training. The Senate's initial budget cut more than $7 million for new trooper training, meaning there would not have been an academy for State Police recruits until 2011.

- About $27.5 million in school construction grants and nearly $333 million to remove educational support staff funding caps. Restoring the money would mean that support personnel such as librarians and school nurses whose jobs were in jeopardy will be spared.

- Funding for local law enforcement, including police departments, sheriff's offices and jails.

The Senate Finance Committee's staff has indicated that Virginia's overall federal stimulus haul should approach $4.6 billion. While much about that money remains unknown - namely what restrictions will be attached to how it is spent - some of those funds will flow into the state transportation coffers.

Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer briefed House budget writers Wednesday on some of the complicated details surrounding the close to $700 million in federal stimulus money Virginia expects to get for road projects.

Of the money, $210 million will be distributed to metropolitan planning organizations across the state, which will determine most of the projects to be built. Hampton Roads would get about $48.3 million.

The remaining $490 million would be doled out by the Commonwealth Transportation Board. Federal regulations say priority should be given to projects in economically stressed areas but do not insist on that criterion.

States are required to obligate half of their money to projects within 120 days, the rest within a year. Several lawmakers said the money will not make a dent in transportation needs in Virginia or Hampton Roads.

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com

Warren Fiske, (804) 697-1565, warren.fiske@pilotonline.com