Del. Kirk Cox, Republican Whip in the Virginia House of Delegates, explains to Shaun Kenney and me the status of budget negotiations between the House and Senate. Each chamber is under a different party’s constrol, which can make budget negotiations challenging, but, ideally, a budget needs to be produced by this Friday so that the rest of the legislature has a chance to review the bill.
Show notes:
0:35 Cox points out that the “forgotten man” in Richmond is often the average taxpayer
1:03 The good news – restoring the car tax is not going to happen
1:17 Cox describes the senate fees and other “gimmicky-types of things”
1:45 The House has a $165 million reserve in its budget
2:03 “It’s easy when you have $600 million in funny money” – referring to the Senate budget
2:20 Cox describes the offers and counter-offers and what fees the Republican House might consider raising
3:35 “We’re not gonna stick the Governor with unrealistic revenues – we want a reserve that’s at least somewhat decent.”
4:10 Cox describes that they only just received a brand new Senate proposal tonight and discusses his frustration with the process and the speed the Senate is moving. “[The Senate] just won’t sit there and work hard enough [to meet deadlines]”
6:02 He does not see the negotiations going until June
6:25 Withtout the big sticking point of the car tax – or some sort of hybrid – Cox believes they should be able to get the budget done
7:00 Cox talks about the cuts to K-12. He says they’re not deep and that from 2000-2009, education spending increased by 58%.
7:20 He compares higher ed cuts to K-12 cuts (25% vs. 8%)
7:35 The Kaine budget and its cuts to support personnel, which has been growing twice as fast as instructional personnel and describes the capbbetween the ratio of instructional to support personnel
8:15 Cuts to travel expenses and expansion of the lifecycle of school buses
8:35 Describes the reduction in block grants for early reading, pre-K, etc. and says the onus is on localities to fund them and the defunding of SOQ planning periods (which was supposedly funded by then Governor Mark Warner’s 2004 tax increase)
10:06 “The cuts are not Draconian. 30,000 teachers are not going to get laid off. I think it’s outrageous some of the numbers the VEA is putting out.”
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