Va. House budget plan has $140M more for schools

By Michael Sluss

RICHMOND

Key leaders in the House of Delegates said today that the chamber’s two-year budget proposal will contain $140 million more in public school funding than the spending plan Gov. Bob McDonnell rolled out in December.

Most of the additional funds — about $106 million over two years — would cover inflation adjustments for operating costs such as maintenance and utilities. The inflation adjustments were not included in the $84.9 billion spending plan McDonnell unveiled in December, an omission that has drawn scorn from education advocates and local governments.

“We heard concerns that we should thoroughly examine the policies contained in the governor’s budget, starting with the proposal to remove the inflation adjustment for public education,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, on the House floor this afternoon.

The House plan also will include money to fully fund a program to reduce class sizes in grades K-3 and to expand an early reading intervention program, said House Majority Leader Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights.

Cox would not say where House budget-writers found the money, but acknowledged the spending plan will contain no additional revenue.

“We’ve been working for the last two weeks to try to make it work,” he said.

McDonnell’s budget plan contains a net increase of $438 million for public schools, but most of that would go toward increased state contributions to teacher pensions. The governor’s plan would not replace $108 million in federal stimulus funding that schools received in the current budget, nor would the House’s budget proposal.

The House and Senate budget-writing committees will release their respective spending plans on Sunday. Each house will vote on its bill next Thursday and negotiators from the two chambers will try to reconcile differences before the General Assembly adjourns March 10.

One key difference already is apparent. The House plan will divert $110 million in state sales tax revenue from the general fund to transportation, part of McDonnell’s plan to dedicate a greater share of the sales tax to roads. The Senate has passed a transportation funding bill that does not include the sales tax shift.

Putney and Cox acknowledged today that they have heard the concerns raised by financially-strapped local governments that are saddled with growing demands for services and declining revenues. McDonnell’s budget plan would restore $25 million of a $12o million cut in state aid to localities that was imposed in the current two-year budget. Cox said the House budget will restore even more funds, reducing the cut “by about half.”

“We all know that localities’ budgets are stretched thin,” Cox said. “They too are grappling with declining real estate values and increased costs of providing services to our citizens.”

The announcement from Putney and Cox comes one day before the Virginia Education Association stages a “day of mourning” to protest budget cuts and other proposed education policy changes, such as McDonnell’s plan to change the teacher contract process. The VEA is encouraging educators to wear black as a silent protest.

“We simply cannot sit idly by and permit additional cuts to the funding lifeblood of our schools,” said VEA President Kitty Boitnott.