Virginia legislators and the governor said Thursday they have crafted a two-year budget that will keep the commonwealth running amid shriveling revenues and a generally bleak economic picture.
But lawmakers still face a looming battle over transportation funding that threatens to drag into the coming months.
House and Senate budget negotiators, who emerged from days of intense talks centered on funding for education, social services, public safety, employee pay raises and other items, said they have worked out a “balance” between the two chambers’ divergent plans.
But the House quarreled Thursday over ways to fix a growing gap in funding for road and rail needs, dramatically worsened when the state Supreme Court struck down much of last year’s transportation funding package. The spat, centered on whether a fix should be statewide or local, could be an indication of the vitriol to come as lawmakers seek to hammer out a replacement.
Nevertheless, both parties claimed success on the $77 billion, two-year budget, which was approved by both houses Thursday night.
“I didn’t go into conference committee with an intramural competition mindset, and I’m not here to say who’s best and who’s not,” said House Appropriations Chairman Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, a top budget conferee.
The state faces a $2 billion shortfall through 2010, which made it clear early on that expectations for new programs and spending would need to be curbed.
Senate Finance Chairman Charles Colgan, D-Manassas, cites the agreement to fund $22 million to expand pre-kindergarten as “not bad,” considering the shortfall. The new spending was far less than what Kaine had proposed, however.
“I would have liked more,” said Kaine in a news conference. “But we’re going to serve a couple thousand more at-risk kids with Pre-K with the budget the conferees agreed to.”
Kaine also pointed to spending on mental health needs in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, education funding, open space preservation, environmental cleanup and foster care as successes this session.
