Virginia budget talks turn to insults

House and Senate budget negotiators hurled insults at each other yesterday but continued to talk, hoping to forestall an extended General Assembly session.

"They are putting their grimy boots on little children," said Sen. R. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania, referring to the House's insistence that the state not increase funding for the pre-kindergarten program.

He spoke at a news conference hours after the House conferees denounced senators for "drawing a line in the sand" during lengthy budget negotiations that lasted until midnight Wednesday.

If the 12 budget negotiators -- six from the House and six from the Senate -- don't reach an agreement today, the session likely will have to be extended, because legislators will need time to view and debate what has been agreed to.

By the end of yesterday, the House had receded from its proposal to change the methodology by which future pay raises for teachers are calculated. The change would reduce future pay raises, teacher groups and Senate negotiators said.

To make up for the revenues lost by dropping this proposal, the House said it would have to give up its proposed 2 percent pay raise for teachers, which had been scheduled to take effect Dec. 1.

"Teachers were punished by the House conferees," Houck said.

The House described the Senate negotiating position as "countless hours of unnecessary waiting and unbelievable denials."

It is the House that is shifting its negotiating positions, said Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, the Senate Democratic leader.

"How do you negotiate with people like that?" Saslaw asked.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who is keeping apprised of the negotiations, downplayed the acrimony.

"It's all rhetoric," he told reporters. "There is a dance to this."

Meanwhile, Saslaw floated the idea of a statewide transportation plan that would allow increases in the gasoline tax, the sales tax on automobiles, and an increase in the tax on real estate sales to raise money to replenish the state's highway maintenance fund, which is $400 million short of meeting the state's maintenance needs.

The Saslaw proposal would have a regional component that would include a local sales tax for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.

This came six days after the Virginia Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a regional plan adopted by last year's General Assembly.

But Saslaw said "it ain't going to happen" during the current session, which is scheduled to end tomorrow. He said the assembly needs to return in a special session to address transportation.

The House of Delegates, nevertheless, kept alive a potential vehicle that could be amended today or tomorrow to address some of the transportation issues. The House Republicans continued to show their opposition to taxes by stripping from the bill, which had been authored by Saslaw, a half-cent sales-tax increase.

In addition to pre-kindergarten funding --one of the major policy initiatives of Kaine --the two chambers differed over money going to mental health, higher education, jail diversion programs and drug courts, for which the House wants to halt state funding.

Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com.