Haggling Continues on Budget, Transit / Decisions on These May Be Pushed to Assembly’s Final Hours
By MICHAEL HARDY; JEFF E SCHAPIRO
They’re busier cutting deals than making deals at the General Assembly.
With only three days left before Saturday’s scheduled adjournment, the House and Senate could be pushing decisions on the state budget and a transportation fix until the countdown hours of the 46-day session.
“Everyone’s trying to cut deals,” Sen. Benjamin J. Lambert III, D- Richmond, observed yesterday.
The dozen deal-makers from the House and Senate are still haggling and jockeying over changes to the second year of the $74 billion budget that may include 4 percent raises for the state work force. Teachers could be in for a slightly smaller increase of 3 percent.
Additionally, the negotiators have not reached agreement on a new transportation-funding plan to fix roads, rail and transit. The House and Senate agree on $2 billion in borrowing but are stuck over major competing components.
Parallel talks over the budget continue to complicate transportation negotiations.
There were murmurings in the Senate last night that Senate Finance Committee Chairman John H. Chichester, R-Northumberland, may be using the budget as a club to shore up opposition to the road- and-rail plan favored by the House and some Senate Republican leaders.
“He hasn’t done that yet – emphasize yet,” said Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Martin E. Williams, R-Newport News, referring to Chichester.
The House has voted to grab about $250 million annually from the so-called general fund – that portion of the budget that otherwise pays for public education, law enforcement and services for the poor, aged and ill.
The Senate, led by Chichester, and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine have rejected what they call the unacceptable raid. Instead, they are promoting an initial one-time $150 registration fee on vehicles valued over $2,500.
That’s been rejected by the House, which views the fee as nothing more than a thinly veiled tax increase. Members of the House’s Republican majority believe they will win some diversion of cash from the general fund for transportation.
“I’d like to get transportation out of the way first because of its fiscal implications,” said Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr., R- Fairfax, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Legislators and lobbyists reported that House negotiators are standing firm on steering $250 million from the general fund to highways and mass transit. Senators apparently pitched, at one point, for $100 million to $150 million.
VIDEO BETTING – The Senate, as expected, revived a proposal to dramatically expand horse-race gambling, with proceeds – perhaps as much as $350 million a year, according to the state’s only track, Colonial Downs – going to transportation.
The measure to allow wagering on recorded races over a network of 11,000 video machines now heads back to the House, where it’s been bogged down in committee and also was spiked on the floor.
Supporters of the gambling bill, most notably Senate Republican Floor Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. of James City County, conceded that profits from the gambit will likely be far less than promised by Colonial Downs.
Norment, whose district includes the New Kent County track, said video gambling might initially raise $50 million, with returns reaching $150 million in three to five years.
Contact staff writer Michael Hardy at mhardy@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6810.
Contact staff writer Jeff E. Schapiro at jschapiro@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6814.
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO
MEMO: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2007
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