And what they had to say.
Small business advocates lobbied to keep the “dealer discount” they get for administering the state sales tax. Merchants keep three per cent of the total sales tax revenues they collect. For many small business, it may amount to five or six hundred dollars a year, enough to hire a high schooler part-time.
School superintendents told legislators that budget cutbacks will inevitably impact the classroom and they’ll have to increase class size and cut jobs to cope with the reductions. They acknowledged that they would have to cut $400 million, but requested that these be one-time reductions and not permanently removed from the schools’ bottom line.
College and university presidents informed Assembly members that another round of double digit tuition increases are coming as a result of budget cutbacks in Higher Ed funding.
The Virginia Retirement System announced that it is on course for a 24% loss this year and may come to the Assembly next year for a funding infusion.
Relatives of individuals with severe mental disabilites noted that budget cutbacks for home care would make it impossible for them to care for their chilren and family in their own houses any longer.
And mental health advocates worried that the entire safety net may be coming down as the Governor plans to shutter two facilities that treat children with severe disturbances who cannnot find help anyplace else.
At the same time, legislators from both parties announced that the Governor has lowballed the revenue shortfall and that, by February, matters are likely to be worse, not better.
Politicans are fond of saying that to govern is to chose, but they usually are contemplating a better array of options. It’s too early to predict what the ultimate shape of the Assembly’s choices will be, but I’ll hazard a few preliminary observations.
I do not imagine that most college and universities will get substantial assistance from the Assembly. The presidents are hoping to short circuit any attempt to limit tuition increases legislatively to a percentage smaller than whey might levy on their own, but are aware that additional money to offset the Governor’s proposed cuts is unlikely to come from the Assembly.
Virginia’s community college system is in a unique situation among colleges and universities because its students are least capable of shouldering high tuition increases- any special attention to colleges and universities might be focused here.
The debate on funding reductions in K-12 already seems to evolved from “if” to “how.” But this does not mean that the dialogue will be any less contentious. The education communty-from teachers, to principal, to superintendents, to school boards- is united against the Governor’s proposal that would, in effect, change a funding formula in a permanent way. And they obtained support this week from both House and Senate Democrats. At the same time, many Republicans in the House have been concerned that if the funding formula for education “rebenchmarking” does not get altered, education costs are likely to escalate completely out of control.
Although the choices on mental health may not involve the most dollars or the most people, this is a matter genuinely gut wrenching for many Assembly members.
They’ve been touched by the stories of family members who have undertaken tremendous sacrifices everyday on behalf of their mentally disabled children and relatives and who need some assistance from the state. And they worry that the Governor’s plans to shutter institutions may be proceeding too quickly-they have asked his staff to return with a plan that can answer their questions about what willl happen to the individuals who are presently being treated in these facilities.
The decisions that legislators make about mental health issues may not have much relevance in the upcoming election cycle.
But I think that mental health policy chocies have become the most emotionally powerful reminders to Assembly members of the human impact their decisions in this session will inevitably have .
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