Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 31, 1990                   TAG: 9003310513
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON and ROB EURE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SAME POT, TWO VOWS BY WILDER

But those funds represent the same pot of money Wilder has been touting as an unobligated "rainy day" fund in speeches across the nation in recent weeks.

Joe Elton, executive director of the state Republican Party, charged Friday that Wilder is engaged in "sleight-of-hand" descriptions of the reserve fund.

"He shouldn't be able to say both that money is a rainy day fund and that it's going to be used for teachers' pay. But he has, and he's getting away with it," Elton said. "It's pretty clear Doug Wilder has a special kind of magic."

In at least four recent speeches to national audiences - in Chicago, New Orleans and twice in Washington, D.C. - Wilder has bragged about persuading the legislature to set aside a $200 million rainy-day fund. He has not mentioned that the money is earmarked for salaries.

When challenged by reporters on this point, Wilder has insisted that the fund is indeed a rainy-day reserve.

His most recent out-of-state comments on the reserve came Thursday at a round table of national political reporters in Washington, D.C. He cited the reserve as one of his major accomplishments in his first three months in office.

Friday morning, Wilder flew into Roanoke amid new reports that he might be backing away from his campaign pledge to raise teacher salaries above the national average.

Detouring from his prepared text to respond, Wilder told more than 1,000 delegates to the Virginia Education Association convention that he had never wavered from his promise to raise teacher salaries above the national average.

Then he cited the $200 million reserve fund as another example of his support for paying them what they deserve.

He said he went to the General Assembly money committees and asked for the fund to help with teacher raises. "And I said, unequivocably, that, `I want you to grant me a $200 million reserve - so that I would be in a position to grant the salary increases next year. This is what I want the money for.' "

When Wilder first brought up the idea of the $200 million reserve Jan. 15, he did not mention teacher salaries. He said he wanted an untethered stash of money to protect the state from possible economic hard times.

Some legislative leaders were cool to that idea, and a month later, Wilder amended his original proposal and asked that the fund be used for next year's salary increases for teachers, college faculty members and state employees.

Outgoing Gov. Gerald Baliles did not include money for raises in the second year of his proposed two-year budget - a routine budgeting practice in recent years. Despite the omission, the legislature has always found money for those raises in the second year of the budget.

After Wilder added teachers, faculty members and state employees to his reserve plan, Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, said the governor's move had "basically built a constituency behind that reserve fund."

Privately, some legislators said they believed Wilder had protected his rainy-day fund from attack in the money committees by promising his original reserve to salaries, and by reducing revenue forecasts by about $200 million. A number of legislators have said that some of that anticipated drop in revenue may not come about.

The $200 million reserve then sailed through the legislature and was adopted in the state's budget.