Delegates are not sold on Kaine’s plans

Del. Ed Scott, R-Madison
Published: February 19, 2008

Last week, the General Assembly passed the midway point of the 2008 session, commonly referred to as "crossover." The House passed 616 of the 1,576 bills filed by delegates, and the Senate approved 433 of the 795 bills filed by senators. Now the House will spend the bulk of its time considering those 433 Senate bills while the Senate will take up the 616 House bills.

Among the bills that passed the House was my legislation (HB111), which improves the revenue-sharing program to better facilitate local and state partnerships for transportation construction projects.

Legislation that I co-patroned to create a school construction revolving loan fund (HB 923), and another measure that expands the Virginia teaching scholarship loan program (HB 506) to teachers pursuing an endorsement in career and technical education also passed the House and are now before the Senate.

Mental health legislation reported on in an earlier column also passed the House unanimously. Another bill (HB 475) that I co-patroned addresses the mental health needs of returning military men and women in the com-monwealth.

Also last week, Gov. Kaine announced that the shortfall in revenues projected by his administration will be significantly more severe than originally forecast. The governor's strategies for addressing these concerns are causing considerable concern in the House of Delegates.

It is clear that funding levels for numerous areas of state government will now be less than in the introduced budget.

Unfortunately, the governor has not abandoned his plans to create new government programs and to expand the scope of others. At the same time, he has proposed significant cuts for clearly defined existing needs and core services.

Among his recommendations are a proposed elimination of $55 million of con-struction grants and the $165 million of lottery profits dedicated to school building projects.

The impact for the 30th District is as follows -Culpeper ($1.4 million), Madison ($470,000) and Orange ($1.06 million). Additionally, the governor has proposed a 5.4 percent reduction in aid to localities.

When difficult choices have to be made, it is important to focus on the everyday issues most important to law-abiding and hard-working Virginia taxpayers.

This week, the House of Delegates will be approving its plan to fund core services for the next two years and to address the shortfall.

In future columns, I'll report on how we face these challenges and how our approach will differ from what the governor has proposed.

Del. Ed Scott, R-Madison, represents Culpeper in the General Assembly's House of Delegates. E-mail del_escott@ house.state.va.us