Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 5, 1992 TAG: 9202050338
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
FOR ASSEMBLY, LESS CASH, MORE WISHES
As legislators struggle to save money in this year's state budget, they're having no trouble finding ways to spend it.Senators have come up with $436 million in extra spending requests for the next two years, according to a tally of budget amendments by the Senate Finance Committee staff.
Delegates have asked for at least twice that much, judging from the almost 600 amendments proposed in the House.
Some want to both spend and save. Sen. Mark Earley, R-Chesapeake, is co-patron of an amendment asking for a $1 million Norfolk State-Old Dominion University campus to serve Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Suffolk.
But Earley also says he can save the state $6 million by reforming the welfare system. His proposal would prohibit mothers from getting more state aid with each new baby, and would let welfare recipients earn wages equaling 25 percent of their aid without losing benefits.
It's not that lawmakers are trying to guard the bank and rob it at the same time, they say; the problem is that the tight budget makes constituents more desperate than usual for funding.
"I haven't felt as much pressure from . . . legislative people as I have from people back home. There is much, much more pressure from across the state than ever before," said Del. Alson Smith, D-Winchester, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
Appropriations decides which money projects fly out of the House and which don't. Not many proposals are expected to take wing.
Del. Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke, proposed 14 budget amendments, "and I don't know where in the world the first 50-cent piece is coming from," he said.
"I have a great number of amendments, but I don't expect for one minute to get each and every one included," said Appropriations Committee member Alan Diamonstein, D-Newport News.
If Diamonstein got all his requests approved, he would add almost $45 million to the state's two-year, $28 billion budget. That's slightly more than the annual appropriation for Norfolk State University.
"I submitted them to give the public the opportunity to discuss the issues and so the legislators will not forget the needs when the money is available," Diamonstein said.
But it means that when Diamonstein asks for a $7.2 million increase in financial aid to college students, $6 million for three new technology centers around Virginia and $5.4 million for public television, someone is going to be disappointed.
"You should understand that you will not affect the budget in any substantial way unless you cut state aid to localities or cut services," Sen. Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton, told the Senate on Tuesday.
As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Andrews promised to unveil possible budget cuts today. "Some of them are going to be awesome," he said.
One slate of budget cuts came from Del. Clinton Miller, R-Woodstock, who filed 25 proposals that would cut more than $32 million - a healthy sum but still less than 1 percent of the budget. Miller would cut the governor's Child Health Initiative, trim 28 jobs from the Department of Education and eliminate such programs as the Council on Information Management and the Virginia Liaison Office in Washington, D.C.
Cuts like that may be unpopular, but they may be more realistic than empty promises, some lawmakers said.
"If on the one hand you talk about exercising fiscal restraint," Earley said, "and on the other you're proposing to spend money that just isn't there, then you have a conflict."
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY