RICHMOND — Funding for law enforcement took an especially brutal beating in Gov. Tim Kaine’s budget proposal, facing big cuts widely expected to force layoffs.
The reductions, reaching well over 10 percent, cut into local police, sheriff’s departments and state police, as well as other arms of the criminal justice system such as prosecutors, court clerks and corrections.
Kaine’s two-year budget delays several trooper schools, yanks state dollars for police and sheriff’s departments by nearly 20 percent, and cuts commonwealth’s attorney’s and circuit court clerk’s offices by nearly the same percentage.
“These cuts will almost certainly require layoffs at the local level to keep local budgets in balance,” Kaine told lawmakers.
Virginia faces a $4.2 billion shortfall for the two-year period beginning July 2010, according to the governor’s most recent estimate.
Kaine proposed ending the state’s car tax relief for counties and cities and replacing the subsidy with a $2 billion-a-year income tax increase, the centerpiece of the two-year budget that also cuts deeply into health care and education.
The outgoing governor’s spending plan includes $2.3 billion in cuts and relies on a handful of likely doomed tax increases to bridge the remaining revenue gap. Kaine’s proposal would lay off 664 state workers and close another 1,879 vacancies.
Kaine’s budget strips $162 million in funding over the biennium from the state’s 123 sheriff’s offices, according to John Jones, executive director of the Virginia Sheriffs’ Association, who said the cuts would result in widespread layoffs and “a draconian reduction in services.”
The Kaine administration sees scant reason for economic optimism for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends in June:
» Virginia is expected to shed another 85,300 jobs by the end of fiscal 2010.
» Personal income is expected to grow by 1.6 percent this year.
» Construction employment is projected to fall 11.9 percent.
» Overall employment is slated to fall 2.3 percent.
Jones said cash-strapped local governments will have an especially tough time back-filling the funding, like they did in the fall when Kaine announced a set of smaller current-year budget cuts.
Jones said cash-strapped local governments will have an especially tough time back-filling the funding, like they did in the fall when Kaine announced a set of smaller current-year budget cuts.
“I think the cuts are dangerous,” he said. “I think the cuts are going to jeopardize the sheriffs’ ability to provide adequate public safety in the communities across the commonwealth.”
Kaine, a Democrat, will hand off the two-year spending plan in January to incoming Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican. McDonnell, who will make his own changes to the budget during the session, objected to several aspects of Kaine’s budget, including new proposed taxes and the squeeze on law enforcement.
McDonnell said he was “concerned with the effect that the governor’s suggested cuts to law enforcement could have on public safety, a core responsibility of government.”
Delaying three trooper schools and reducing the number of trainees would save about $9 million through mid-2012, according to Kaine’s budget.
