March 13, 2008

Check status of any bill >

Budget deal reached at expense of local government

The House and Senate budget conferees have reached agreement on a budget, which will be voted on today at 4 p.m. in the House, and at 5 p.m. in the Senate.

It appears that the General Assembly is poised to expand state programs and implement new ones at the expense of local aid. Most local aid is tied to programs that the state requires local governments to offer. The upshot, therefore, may be that the state is balancing its budget and expanding its services by passing the buck to local governments for making service cuts or raising taxes.

Newspapers report that the budget contains $50 million a year in cuts to local governments. The full extent of cuts to localities is likely to be higher, as this amount is probably on top of other cuts in either the introduced budget or in the original budgets adopted by the House and Senate back in February. Just as an example, this amount may be on top of cuts in school construction grants funding and the diversion of court fees.

The amendments that contain the details of the budget are being printed, and should be available by this evening. VML staff will review those amendments and send a detailed analysis as soon as possible.

After adopting the budget today, the General Assembly will return to Richmond on April 23 for the veto session.

In addition, Gov. Tim Kaine has said that he plans to call a special session within the next two months to deal with transportation funding.

^ Top | Index