ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 27, 1996 TAG: 9602270110
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
Del. Vic Thomas will have to accumulate a little more seniority before he gets a marquee role in the General Assembly budget drama.
The tobacco-chomping Roanoke Democrat's chance for the big time evaporated Monday when House of Delegates Speaker Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, confirmed he would not expand his slate of budget conferees.
Thomas was next in line in seniority if a fifth House conferee had been named.
The decision is a blow to the Roanoke Valley.
As a conferee, Thomas would have been in a position to ensure that the region gets its share of goodies in the state's $34.6 billion budget.
Southwest Virginia, however, should pick up a conferee on the Senate side with the expected addition of Sen. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount.
Budget conferees have unrivaled clout in the way taxpayer money is doled out across the state. In the final days of the General Assembly session, the conferees reconcile differences in the House and Senate versions of the budget.
As a senior member of House Appropriations, Thomas succeeded in slipping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the House budget for various projects in the Roanoke Valley. But there is no corresponding money in the Senate budget for many of those projects.
A seat on the conference committee would have put Thomas in the position of making sure these projects ended up in the final budget.
He and other local lawmakers now will have to rely on whatever indirect pressure they can bear on the process.
Goode's appointment is not certain. The Senate slate is cloudy because of a hitch in an unprecedented power-sharing agreement between Senate Republicans and Democrats.
"For the first time, we've come up with something that could be an impasse," said Sen. Stanley Walker, a Norfolk Democrat and co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
The Senate agreement calls for the expansion of the budget conference committee, which reconciles differences in the House and Senate budgets, from four to five members from each chamber.
The five Senators were to be: Charles Colgan, D-Manassas; Joseph Gartlan Jr., D-Fairfax County; John Chichester, R-Fredericksburg; Walker; and Goode.
The agreement, however, hinges on Moss' agreeing to expand the House slate to five - something he said Monday he would not do.
That Senate agreement is silent on who would be named if there were only four members.
Presumably, Democrats and Republicans would each get two members. Walker would chose either Colgan or Gartlan. Chichester is expected to name Goode out of gratitude for the Democrat's role in helping Republicans gain a share of control in the Senate.
Each chamber faces a midnight deadline tonight to name budget conferees. WHAT'S AT STAKE FOR ROANOKE
The House of Delegates' version of the state budget contains funding for many Roanoke projects that aren't funded in the Senate version of the budget. legislative intrigue over whethera Roanoke legislator - specifically, Del. Vic Thomas - is named one of the conferees matters to the Roanoke Valley.
Some examples:
Project House budget Senate budget Virginia Western Community College fine arts building $500,000 None Virginia Western Community College; to draw plans for higher education center likely to be in old railroad office building $500,000 $250,000 Virginia Water Project $300,000 None Virginia State Games $75,000 None Department of Economic Development office for Roanoke $50,000 none College of Health Sciences; to ease transition to independent operation $950,000 None Virginia CARES $1 million None Mill Mountain Zoo $50,000 None Volunteer Rescue Squad Museum $100,000 None
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Del. Vic Thomas won't have a seat at the table when theby CNBtime comes to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the state
budget. color. KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996