David Sherfinski’s piece on Gov. McDonnell’s budget amendments that would direct $1 million to two private nonprofit organizations (despite the Virginia constitution’s ban on such giving) brought back memories of state-giving past.
Yes, Virginians, it’s not just the Governor who likes to play Santa Claus. Compared to the General Assembly, Gov. McDonnell is downright Grinchy. And if state revenues show even the slightest hint of recovery, look for them to put their red suits on and start the gift-giving all over again.
Consider those long-ago days when the state was running big budget surpluses. When legislators sat down to revise then-Gov. Kaine’s proposed 2006-2008 budget, they found that Mr. Kaine had originally planned to hand out only $19 million to private charities. But when the then-Republican controlled Senate got done checking its naughty and nice list, the grants ballooned to $94 million in the first year and rose from a miserly $600,000 in the second year to more than $41 million.
It was a bipartisan festival of giving, with money raining down on the Virginia Ballet Theater, the Richmond Boys Choir the Bristol Fire Museum and hundreds of others (223 requests were made in the Senate alone). The House was more circumspect, mingling its nonprofit requests with a host of other earmarks (which went on for pages).
It was a good couple of years to be a nonprofit organization. In the next budget cycle, as the bottom began to drop out of the economy and state revenues quickly followed, Gov. Kaine proposed to hand out just $4 million in FY 2010, and nothing in FY 2009. The General Assembly, realizing it didn’t even have that amount to spare, cut the grants entirely for both years.
Last winter, as budget conditions worsened, the General Assembly again refrained from handing out grants to nonprofits.
But as we now know, the Governor has broken the drought with his requests. And interestingly enough, the House Appropriations Committee has brought back its handy online form for legislators to make their own requests for what it calls “nonstate agencies.” The Committee’s web site sternly warns that all requests must be made by the close of business on January 14, 2011.
So to all those nonprofits looking to close a budget gap, invest in new equipment, or expand their headquarters, the state is once again taking your requests.
