Virginia’s proposed budget has met resistance from supporters of K-12 education and health care as state legislators have laid out competing plans that would slash funding.
The state must somehow address a two-year, $4 billion deficit.
Both the Senate and the House of Delegates have proposed plans that would cut more from public school funding than former Gov. Tim Kaine proposed in December.
Both plans also call for deeper cuts to public health care programs.
Each chamber will vote on its own version on Thursday.
The chambers will then attempt to compromise on the differences between the two plans.
The House plan would cut a total of $1.5 billion more than what Kaine had proposed and would include an additional $620 million in cuts to public K-12 schools and $211 million from health and human services programs.
The Senate would only cut $704 million from the proposed budget and would plan to take $133 million from education and $344 million from health and human resources.
Neither house plans to cut more from higher education.
Both plans also eliminated a proposed 5 percent tax on student fee money at public universities.
Virginia21, a lobbying group that cooperates with student government groups in all Virginia universities, hosted a lobbying day Thursday focused on ridding the proposal of the tax and maintaining current higher education funding levels.
“I definitely think the trip made a difference because the student tax was something that was a big priority for Virginia21, and it’s something we all addressed in our meetings,” said Brittany Anderson, SGA director of governmental affairs. “I think our message was really carried loud and clear over the past couple of weeks during the General Assembly session, and I think it sends a really good message about where students priorities are and how much students care.”
Sen. Frank Ruff, a Republican from the 15th district, said Thursday that every part of the budget is experiencing cuts and must ride out the economic recession.
“The reality is this is an extremely bad year,” Ruff said. “This is the worst economy in our generation and your generation. The world is not going to fall apart. What we’ve got to do is figure out how we can best use the dollars that are available.”
He emphasized the importance of new ideas that must come from tense budget negotiations.
“Too frequently we just say, ‘OK, we did it last year and the year before, so we’re going to do it this year and add a little bit to it.’ Maybe that’s not the game plan we’ll be going with the next decade,” Ruff said.
In a meeting with a leader from each represented school, Delegate Robert Tata said that while funding for higher education may be cut this year, he expects it to rebound next year.
Tata, who serves as the chairman of the House of Delegates Arts and Higher Education subcommittee, also said proposed bills that would require Virginia universities to admit a certain proportion of their students from inside the state were unrealistic.
Out-of-state students, who pay a higher tuition, make up a large funding base for state universities.
Both plans also include plans to discontinue Kaine’s proposed car tax relief payments that would give $1.9 billion back to taxpayers.