ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 4, 1996 TAG: 9601040023
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ray L. Garland
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
EUGENE O'NEILL said, "There is no present or future, only the past happening over and over again." That seems an apt quote on which to begin a discussion of the 1996 General Assembly, just elected and shortly to convene.
But Gov. George Allen seems a changed man. Gone are the contentious proposals of last year to cut both business and personal taxes. And his idea of returning lottery profits to localities has been reduced to the merest nub: only $15 million in the second year of the budget starting July 1. In that same budget, the state contemplates more than $700 million in lottery profits, along with new and bigger games.
This anti-tax governor even wants to postpone yet again removal of the 4.5 percent sales tax on nonprescription drugs, scheduled to take effect July 1. The $27 million in revenue gained by not removing this tax would be dedicated to expanding pre-kindergarten programs for "at-risk" children.
Opening a hole in the sales tax for nonprescription drugs was always a bad idea that should now be dropped entirely. The small tax savings was never worth the administrative headache for merchants and the state tax department.
Not wishing to be seen abandoning tax relief entirely, Allen told legislators he would soon appoint a bipartisan commission to consider the state's tax structure. "During the coming year," he said, "I want to avoid the rancor and division of last year's tax-cut debate ... and see if we can forge a bipartisan consensus on positive steps ... to reduce the tax burden in ways that will enhance our economic competitiveness." But it's hard to imagine the present legislature yielding any existing revenue source.
On the subject of taxes, the state's political establishment seems to have already reached a consensus: Spend all the money that comes in the door and neither cut nor raise taxes. If polls be gospel, the public shares that view.
I am in no position to second-guess the revenue estimates on which the proposed 1996-98 budget is based. But they do seem quite conservative. The 1994-96 budget, as amended, contemplates outlays of $33.2 billion through June 30. The new budget sets spending at $34.6 billion, representing one of the smallest percentages of growth in the past 30 years.
It's entirely likely, of course, the assembly will adopt a larger estimate of revenues, permitting more spending. And barring a recession, the '97 assembly may be in a position to add a few hundred million more. It usually does. That would bring total spending for the 1996-98 biennium well above $35 billion, or about $2,700 a year for each citizen of the commonwealth.
Within the governor's conservative estimate of revenue growth, he has proposed an overall increase of 11 percent in state spending on public schools and 7 percent for college operating funds. Virginia students attending a Virginia private college would also get larger grants: rising from $1,500 a year now to $2,000 in 1998.
Allen has given a political hostage to Democrats in the form of relatively small raises for state workers and teachers. He proposes a one-time bonus of 4.2 percent for almost 100,000 state employees, payable next Dec. 16. But he earmarked no state money to assist local governments in raising the pay of public-school teachers, nor did he mandate any such raises. He did include funds for an across-the-board raise of 3 percent, effective Dec. 1, 1997.
Lobbyists for teachers and state employees are certain to press for raises of at least 5 percent in each year of the new budget, and are likely to get more than Allen proposed. But with inflation running substantially below 5 percent, and the government's cost of funding health and retirement benefits constantly rising, taxpayers may well ask, "Who's looking out for us?"
Of course, the '96 assembly will not be occupied solely by debates over the budget. Old issues, such as riverboat gambling, will be back for another airing, joined by a few new kids on the block. Whether to reform Virginia's system of juvenile justice in the direction of more emphasis on prevention or punishment will present perhaps the sharpest line of partisan division between Democrats and Republicans.
The Commission on Juvenile Justice appointed by Allen and headed by Attorney General James Gilmore wants to open more proceedings in juvenile court to public scrutiny, and to try those older juveniles accused of serious crimes as adult offenders.
Anticipating an Allen push to toughen sanctions against juvenile crime similar to those he put through for adult criminals his first year in office, Democrats launched a legislative Commission on Youth headed by Del. Jerrauld Jones. This promptly cranked up the assembly's own Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission to provide statistical support for greater emphasis on rehabilitation.
JLARC examined the files of nearly 3,000 juvenile cases from 1992 and tracked them over a three-year period. It found that fewer than 20 percent of delinquents received counseling or treatment. But it also reported that only 9 percent of juvenile cases resulted in house arrest or confinement.
In his new budget, Allen proposed $7.3 million to pay for three new 50-bed "boot" camps for juveniles and $2.3 million to implement military-school methods at existing facilities. He also contemplates a larger number of older juveniles committed to adult prisons.
Allen seems to have all but abandoned his Commission on Champion Schools, which recommended various alternatives to the traditional public-school model. Unlike last year, the governor included no money in the new budget to launch his famous "charter" schools, about which we heard so much in the recent campaign. Apparently, this signals the demise of even this very modest reform.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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