Va. gov-elect won’t revise Kaine’s budget himself, will let GOP legislators do heavy lifting

Va. gov-elect won’t offer revised state budget

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia’s Republican Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell says he won’t substitute a budget of his own for the one Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine offered last month, even though he has serious differences with it.

McDonnell and legislators involved in the budget process say it will fall to legislative Republicans, primarily those who dominate the House Appropriations Committee, to reconcile a $4 billion shortfall projected over the next two-year budget.

New governors routinely revise their predecessors’ budgets, even when the same party remains in power.

“I depend on them to do their job in a timely fashion, and I look forward to working with them to help them with ideas and provide them with information,” McDonnell said.

He noted the difficulty of a new governor comprehending the complexity of 450 pages of line items in a few days after taking office and said it was more reasonable to task veteran Finance Secretary Richard Brown to help legislative money committees reflect the administration’s priorities.

McDonnell said he said he would meet as early as next week with senior House and Senate budget negotiators.

The move also keeps McDonnell’s fingerprints off of directives to cut billions of dollars in state programs and services, including some core areas such as education and health care that have avoided paring in past hard time.

House and Senate Democrats accused McDonnell of trying to avoid accountability for the worst state fiscal crisis in modern Virginia history, the result of a brutal recession and increased unemployment.

“This would be unprecedented,” said state Sen. Janet D. Howell, D-Fairfax and a member of the Senate Finance Committee. “Every other governor has presented his own balanced budget. This would be a dereliction of duty for him not to show the leadership this position.”

Del. Ward L. Armstrong, leader of the House’s Democratic minority, smirked when told of McDonnell’s strategy.

“Tough, isn’t it, to be in government and be insulated,” he said.

Del. M. Kirkland Cox, the ranking Republican Appropriations Committee member, said the Democrats’ objections are off-base because eventually, McDonnell will have an opportunity to amend or veto any line item in the budget.

“In the end, the governor will weigh in,” said Cox, of Colonial Heights. “When it’s all done, everyone will own a piece of this.”

There is plenty for the GOP to dislike in the economic blueprint that Kaine laid out Dec. 18, the last budget he will present before his term ends Saturday and McDonnell is sworn in as Virginia’s 71st governor.

Kaine’s budget cuts deeply from public schools, sheriff’s deputies, state reimbursements for Medicaid and aid to state-supported colleges and universities. In a separate bill related to the budget, however, Kaine proposed $2 billion a year in increases to the state’s income tax rate, and that is something McDonnell and legislative Republicans adamantly reject. Even some Democrats say they can’ support it.

Without the income tax boost, however, the job of balancing the state budget through cuts, fees for some state services and other moves becomes doubly difficult.