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The General Assembly passed its $77 billion state government spending plan for the next two years Thursday night, then adjourned five days late.Fixing last year's flawed highway funding law, however, will have to wait.
The House, with no debate, passed the budget unanimously. A divided Senate, however, approved the two bills that direct state spending on votes of 26-14 after protracted partisan posturing.
In the Senate, Republicans delayed the vote for more than an hour, contending that it is built on revenue estimates that will prove too optimistic for the troubled economic times.
"What troubles me deeply is the cloud over revenues," said Sen. William Wampler of Bristol, R-Bristol, who helped draft the final compromise that was passed Thursday.
The austere new budget, tempered by a projected $2 billion revenue shortfall through mid-2010, contains cuts both to state operations and state support for local government, particularly law enforcement.
But it assumes a 6 percent increase in personal income tax collections, a level Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico and an accountant, said was unrealistic. He also said estimated proceeds from the state lottery appeared inflated, and he decried less money for local governments to use than they had anticipated.
More than $1 million is reserved for updating basic academic standards for public schools, boosting it past $11 billion for two years. There are two pay raises of 2 percent each for state employees, state-supported college faculty and state-augmented local government employees, and one such pay raise for teachers.
The House, meanwhile, spent much of the evening arguing over when and how to repair the flawed 2007 transportation funding law that a state Supreme Court ruling gutted on Feb. 29.
Remedial legislation, however, will have to await a special session that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will call. Lawmakers also will return in a few weeks in another special session to finish work on bonds for financing higher education, mental health and state parks.
A bill to refund taxes collected by regional transportation authorities in northern Virginia and Hampton Roads passed on a 97-1 vote in the House and 40-0 in the Senate. The court ruled that the authorities' taxing power was unconstitutional because they were governed by unelected boards.
House Republicans had called for a vote before the legislative session adjourned on a measure that would have imposed the taxes in the regions under the legitimate taxing power of state and local governments.
"The fix is done. It's right here. Take it home. If there's something you don't like about it, give me a call," said David Albo, R-Fairfax, in his unsuccessful appeal.
Besides their long-standing aversion to the second statewide tax increase in four years, Republicans oppose regional taxes levied by the legislature on grounds that the legislature could divert them in tough times to other state needs.
Democrats, however, held out for a special legislative session that would consider a revised funding plan that raises substantially more money statewide for upkeep and repairs to existing state highways.
"If we do not address maintenance needs, we will be driving on dirt roads again pretty soon," said House Democratic Leader Ward L. Armstrong of Henry County.
If House and Senate Democrats try to coerce a statewide tax boost, Albo threatened at one point that he would try to rewrite the formula by which billions of highway construction dollars are allocated, a move that could route much more of it to populous, suburban regions such as his and less to rural areas.
By BOB LEWIS and DENA POTTER Associated Press Writers
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