RICHMOND — Friction between Richmond legislators escalated quickly late Saturday as posturing between House and Senate budget negotiators pushed debate late into the evening at the state Capitol. Though lawmakers slogged doggedly throughout the day toward agreements on amendments to Virginia’s current two-year budget, talks were still ongoing and no consensus had been reached as of press time.
“Essentially, some of their policies are what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable,” said Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax.
Lawmakers had appeared poised to give Northern Virginia schools and local businesses a modest boost after cutting billions from the state’s overall budget in recent years.
The House and Senate had a tentative agreement in place that would add about $75 million in general fund revenues to K-12 education. The Senate had originally proposed adding $100 million, while the original House budget proposal would have chopped state aid to localities by $93 million in the next fiscal year.
Under the House’s original proposed amendments, direct state aid for K-12 to Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties would have gone down by $5.9 million, $3 million, and $6.4 million in each county, respectively. It remains unclear how the $75 million would be disputed if it were approved.
The House budget also had proposed $112 million in spending to virtually eliminate an unpopular sales tax program that requires businesses with sales or purchases of at least $1 million annually to remit payments a month early in June. The Senate didn’t address it at all.
The two sides had apparently settled on a figure of about $46 million to exempt businesses taking in $5.4 million or less, or about 80 percent of those affected.
“It’s the local businesses that are not liking this,” said Robert Vaughn, Staff Director for the House Appropriations Committee.
For example, Mango Mike’s in Alexandria had to advance the state $10,000 last year and Joe Theismann’s restaurant in Old Town had to shell out $20,000 a month early because of the program.
The two sides had also reached tentative agreements on using about $33 million in general fund money for transportation and requiring all state employees to contribute 5 percent of their salaries to the depleted state pension fund, to be offset by 5 percent raises.
But as of late Saturday, negotiators were in a stalemate over specifics on how to address funding for Health and Human Resources and services for the intellectually disabled. A recent report from the Department of Justice lambasted the state for its sterile and ineffective system to care for people with disabilities.
