State to cut more than $1B from health care, education, pensions RICHMOND – Virginia lawmakers bridged vast divisions Sunday to pass a pared-down $70 billion budget and two-year spending plan that dials back state funding for education, health care and employee pensions while raising about $100 million in fees.

Lawmakers had feuded for weeks about how to close a shortfall through mid-2012 of more than $4 billion. A small team of negotiators from the GOP-led House and Democrat-majority Senate dragged the session into a single day of overtime before emerging with a compromise early Sunday morning.