Without knowing how much deeper the state's revenue shortfall will be or how much federal stimulus money is heading for Virginia, legislative money panels offered placeholder budgets to meet a Sunday deadline.
Amid a deteriorating economy and frightful surges in unemployment, and with Congress debating an $800 billion-plus economic stimulus bill, House and Senate budget writers offered guesswork spending revisions that Appropriations Committee Chairman Lacey Putney called "a halftime budget."
It could take weeks before Virginia officials are clear how much of the federal cash will course through the state budget, and state government's spending blueprint through June 2010 will remain in flux until then. By the time all the information is in hand, a conference committee of perhaps a dozen lawmakers negotiating largely in private is likely to control the process.
"I hope this along with the federal stimulus dollars will allow the conferees to balance the budget and avoid deeper cuts," said Putney, I-Bedford.
In the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Charles Colgan acknowledged that money committees are flying blind for now and that the conferees would work out the details.
"We're going into uncharted territory," said Colgan, D-Prince William.
Republicans on the panel begged the Democratic majority to delay reporting out a budget until the information was in hand.
"I feel that I'm being asked to cast the most difficult and yet the most important vote without adequate information," said Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach.
The result is that most all the recommendations in both the House and Senate versions come with an asterisk beside them.
The U.S. Senate's move to eliminate about $40 billion from its stimulus package bill sent a chill through Virginia lawmakers Sunday. That could eliminate about $800 million in federal cash the state general fund stood to gain in 2011, said Robert Vaughn, Appropriations Committee staff director.
Even so, plans in both the House and the Senate make some changes to amendments Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed in December to the state's two-year, $80 billion budget. About $32 billion of that is for the general fund, which is used for services such as education, health care and public safety.
The House budget establishes a $65 million reserve as a hedge against continued erosion of the state's general fund. The Senate's proposed reserve is $44 million.
The House cuts $4 million from public television and radio, softens the cuts to sheriffs and other constitutional officers from 7 percent to 5 percent.
The House and the Senate anticipate a $36 million infusion from a tax amnesty period next year that would allow people to pay delinquent taxes without penalties. When the state tried a similar amnesty program in 2003, the last time the state battled a severe shortfall, it yielded about $98 million, Vaughn said
The House funds 400 additional waivers for caring for people with mental disabilities in home or community-based settings.
The House and the Senate both restore about $150 million for Medicaid services from Kaine's budget.
In public education, the House budget follows Kaine's lead in cutting nearly $12 million from the pre-kindergarten reading initiative. In the Senate, the major cuts to public school support staff are temporary instead of permanent.
Both budgets eliminate Kaine's proposed doubling of the state cigarette tax to 60 cents per pack, and both also scrap his proposal to pick up an additional $65 million a year by ending "dealer discount," a break retailers received for computing and remitting sales tax collections. The House replaces the dealer discount with payments to retailers up to $800 a month for collecting the tax. It also increases the frequency of sales tax remittances from monthly to semimonthly.
The House also includes a provision that would require the General Assembly, not the governor, to appropriate stimulus package money from the federal government.
For state employees, neither budget restores the pay raises that have been cut. The House budget restores health care benefits that had been cut. The Senate budget authorizes creation of a separate, statewide health insurance program for school employees.
