General Assembly prepares for overtime

The General Assembly session will be extended at least a day because of a budget impasse, the House majority leader said yesterday.

The 60-day session was scheduled to end today. This would be the legislature’s third overtime session in four years.

While lawmakers had not yet adopted a rule change officially extending the session, House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, said the only question is how far into overtime the session will go—“one, two or three days.“

Asked if he were embarrassed by the prospect of another overtime session, Griffith replied: “I had hoped we could get it done; it does not appear that will be the case.“

Each extra day would cost taxpayers about $20,000, based on the per-diem expense allowances legislators receive.

The 100 House of Delegates members are entitled to $135 a day, while the 40 senators can receive $169 a day. This is the amount they voted themselves when the session began 60 days ago. The $169 is the amount allowed by the Internal Revenue Service.

Many legislators, however, forgo the expense allowance during an overtime session.

To cut back on costs, the legislators work without staff, pages and other attendants hired for the regular session.

The delegates receive $17,640 a year, while senators receive $18,000. The pay is for a year’s work, so they don’t get more money for working more hours.

“It’s just the budget,“ Griffith said, blaming the deadlock that showed little signs of being resolved yesterday. Lawmakers are trying to iron out differences over teacher pay raises, funding for mental health and for the governor’s prekindergarten program, among other issues.

The 12 budget negotiators met off and on throughout the day yesterday, but in an afternoon meeting, they were so far apart that they couldn’t agree on what they had agreed on earlier in the day, or on who should be in the room.

But after some back and forth, they settled on the revenue estimates of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, which took about $1 billion off the initially proposed $78 billion budget to guide state spending over the two years beginning July 1.

With revenues settled, the negotiators said they would have an easier time determining what spending cuts to make.

Kaine is expected to call the General Assembly back into a special session, probably around the one-day April 16 veto session, to deal with a transportation-funding plan that the Virginia Supreme Court found partly unconstitutional.

The court shot down a regional plan in Northern Virginia, ruling that an unelected body cannot impose taxes. Kaine said the ruling affects an authority in Hampton Roads as well.

The Virginia Chamber of Commerce yesterday urged Kaine to convene a special session.

“We all know that new revenues are needed to solve this problem,“ said Michael A. Daniels, chairman of the business group.

House of Delegates Republicans said lawmakers could easily fix the problem during this session by merely giving elected bodies in the regions the power to impose taxes.

Del. Samuel A. Nixon Jr., R-Chesterfield, one of three House Republican transportation negotiators, said a quick fix would keep important road projects going. Every day’s delay costs Northern Virginia $1 million, he said.

The chamber said the plan adopted last year after “angst, hand-wringing, compromise and politics” was a failed plan.

But in a floor speech yesterday, Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott County, said the rest of the transportation plan is working, providing more than $300 million in statewide transportation funding and $3 billion in bonds over the next 20 years.

Senators, led by Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, the Senate Democratic leader, said a statewide transportation fix is needed. Otherwise, he said, Northern Virginia would be shortchanged on important highway maintenance and new construction funds. Kaine takes the Senate view.

Saslaw has offered a statewide tax plan that would provide about $500 million a year, but House Republicans say this will go nowhere.

Last night Saslaw made public a letter he wrote to Griffith in which he underscored the urgency of acting quickly to address the state’s transportation needs. Saslaw said that the state could no longer afford additional transfers of construction dollars to road maintenance.

“Choosing not to address the statewide funding shortage in the maintenance budget renders the regional plans absolutely worthless,“ said Saslaw. “Let’s do this right.“
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6645 or .