Kaine Is in for A Fight On Budget

GOP Is Opposed To New Spending

RICHMOND, Feb. 15 -- Virginia House Republican leaders said Friday that they will strip from the state budget many of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's spending priorities, including an expansion of pre-kindergarten classes for poor children.

Because of a projected $1.4 billion shortfall in Kaine's 2009-2010 budget, GOP leaders say they will focus on paying for existing programs, such as public education and aid to local governments, instead of starting new programs or expanding existing ones.

Kaine (D) and Senate Democrats say they will fight to protect the governor's priorities, setting up a battle over the budget in the remaining three weeks of the legislative session.

Senate Democrats also said they would fight for transportation funding. On Friday, the Senate voted 25 to 15 to approve an increase in the state's gas tax by a penny a year over the next five years. House Republicans oppose the idea.

The gas tax increase for highway maintenance, a priority of Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax), and Kaine's pre-kindergarten initiative could become tools in end-of-the session budget negotiations.

Kaine wants to close the budget shortfall by transferring money from the state's reserve fund and cutting money for school construction by more than $100 million. He also would cut aid to local governments by 5.4 percent and reduce grants to public colleges and universities by 2 percent.

But Kaine also is proposing an estimated $400 million in new spending, ranging from new wastewater treatment plants to an expansion in a program that pays for mammograms for the poor.

"By advocating hundreds of millions of dollars in new programs, Governor Kaine has shown his priorities," said House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford). "The governor has chosen to build these new costly programs on the backs of Virginia schoolchildren in trailers and tuition-paying college students . . . This is not the time to be doing new programs."

House Republicans, who expect to approve their budget Tuesday, say they will agree to Kaine's proposal to boost spending on mental health programs by $42 million over two years. A mental health overhaul became a priority after a mentally ill gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech last spring.

Most of Kaine's other priorities will be eliminated from the House budget, Howell said.

Kaine says he will fight to preserve his priorities, most notably his plan to expand the Virginia Preschool Initiative to cover 4-year-olds eligible for free and reduced school lunches. Kaine plans to visit two preschools next week to start making his case to the public.

"If it is the philosophy of government of the House Republican leadership that the number one goal is to kill pre-K services to at-risk 4-year-olds, they are entitled to try to govern with that as their philosophy," Kaine said. "I scratch my head and wonder why . . . But that is one good thing about having some friends who are in the majority in the Senate now."