Services for seniors and pregnant teens, funding for local jails and libraries, and investigators who go after tax scofflaws are all on the chopping block under cuts proposed to Gov. Bob McDonnell late last month.
McDonnell asked state agencies in September to outline strategies for dealing with budget cuts of 2, 4 and 6 percent as he prepares his administration’s first biennial spending plan. According to a document provided to The Washington Examiner by the governor’s office, 10 state agencies identified 158 pages of reductions and eliminations to services, programs, personnel, buildings, grants and aid, in addition to ideas for consolidating offices, axing unnecessary positions and introducing new fees.
The suggestions are very preliminary, but a hypothetical 2 percent reduction would result in $154 million in cuts and 34 layoffs, while a 6 percent scenario would mean $442 million in cuts and 223 layoffs. Not included in the report were suggestions from agencies dealing with K-12 and higher education, Medicaid, and behavioral health, which will get a more surgical approach from McDonnell’s budgeting staff.
McDonnell presents his 2012-14 budget to the General Assembly in December.
Revenues exceeded projections in October for the 19th month out of the last 20, McDonnell announced Friday. Democrats have publicly questioned why further cuts are necessary with revenue up and a $310 million surplus carried over from the last budget.
The administration is preparing for less robust revenue collections with unemployment still high and a stalling national economy along with uncertainty as to how the congressional supercommittee’s cuts will affect the state, Secretary of Finance Ric Brown said.
“People understand the real need for precaution,” Brown said. “There is a sense that this is necessary.”
Brown went through the cuts proposed by agency heads and weighed in on cuts he thinks the state could most easily sustain.
Items he identified as expendable in the biennial budget included: $11.1 million in local aid for sheriffs, jails and commonwealth’s attorneys; $2.9 million to assist pregnant teens and provide teenage pregnancy prevention programs; $1 million in various programs for seniors; and $1 million for public libraries.
He recommended against adopting some money-saving measures, including $37.2 million from closing 1,000 beds in correctional facilities, a $5 fee for tax refund checks sent by mail to generate $249,984 in new revenue, $678,620 for investigators who target tax cheats, and $1.2 million to close one of Virginia’s two halfway houses, among hundreds of other proposals.
But McDonnell would make the final decisions.
“You’re going to see some that maybe they should’ve done this already. We see that with every round of these things. And then there will be others … that are very tough to do,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of give and take.”
