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

DATE: MONDAY, October 11, 1993                   TAG: 9310110097
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

EDUCATION GROUP TOLD TO EXPECT TIGHT BUDGET

State officials have told members of the Virginia Education Association that funding for public schools in the 1994-96 budget will be tight.

Many members of the teachers' union responded that Virginia should raise taxes to help pay for educational programs.

Teachers at a legislative forum Saturday heard from Education Secretary Karen Petersen and Sen. Hunter Andrews, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

The two mentioned that a projected $500 million state budget deficit caused by slow economic recovery will be coupled with budget increases resulting from an expected 200,000 more children entering Virginia's public schools in the 1990s.

This year's financial problems are not insurmountable, Andrews said, but all the solutions will be "politically difficult."

Those might include cutting some business activities from the tax-exempt list, taxing more personal services, increasing state income tax rates on high wage-earners and moving up some of the taxes enacted but delayed. - Associated Press

by CNB