By Spencer S. Hsu and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 14, 1998; Page A24

RICHMOND, March 13—The wrangling over Gov. James S. Gilmore III's plan to cut the car tax has dominated much of the General Assembly's session, but the legislature has endorsed a range of other proposals that will change life for people across Virginia.

Teachers will get pay raises, Northern Virginia governments are on track to get nearly $100 million to build and improve roads, and the state's largest shipyard likely will get $8 million in tax credits to help it land Navy contracts for a new generation of aircraft carriers.

Lawmakers also have pushed through new aid for worker training programs and state colleges -- including George Mason University in Fairfax -- and have given private college students tuition tax credits.

Social conservative organizations called this their best session ever, as the growing Republican influence in the General Assembly allowed them to pass bills to ban late-term abortions and assisted suicides.

And although the legislature voted to restore a statewide mandate on sex education and elementary school guidance counselors, Gilmore has pleased conservative activists by indicating that he will veto the measures.

Conservatives also were able to push through measures that require schools to teach monogamy and abstinence.

Much of the new spending will eat into $1.2 billion in new revenue that is a result of Virginia's booming economy.

A big chunk of that money will help pay for a car-tax cut and a school construction program, but there has been enough left for some goodies to be spread around the state.

Industry also has done well this session. Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia's largest private employer, and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Alan A. Diamonstein (D-Newport News) is close to muscling through the $8 million tax credit, which could grow to $98 million over five years.

Doctors and the Virginia Medical Society, whose six-figure lobbying and campaign budget makes them perennially among the top givers to General Assembly candidates, won approval of a plan that requires health maintenance organizations to offer employees of small companies the chance to select doctors outside their health network if they pay an additional fee.

HMOs, meanwhile, won approval of a plan to bring all managed-care plans under the same regulatory guidelines that HMOs have to follow. The unregulated health-care networks have sprouted in recent years as new attractions in a rapidly evolving industry.

Virginia Power, meanwhile, pushed through a plan to deregulate the state's electric industry at the wholesale level by 2001, despite objections by consumer and state regulators.

Northern Virginia real estate developers reined in local zoning controls, and telecommunications companies were pushing legislation aimed at booting local governments out of their business. The plan would force the city of Blacksburg to divest itself of the highly touted "Internet village" it helped to create to link local schools, libraries, Virginia Tech University and government offices.

The measure also will end localities' involvement in upgrading phone lines to permit Internet connections, which critics said likely will mean that Internet service will be slower in coming to many residents in the rural western part of the state.

Meanwhile, the legislature relaxed the financial disclosure laws that govern General Assembly members, reversing a restriction that had been championed by former governor George Allen. The new measure raises from $50 to $100 the threshold for reporting gifts and meals to assembly members.

Northern Virginia lawmakers have shepherded through the legislature a $95 million bond package to build and improve highways and Metro stations in all five major jurisdictions, although final approval was scheduled to come this weekend, along with the state's two-year, $40 billion budget.

The bonds will be funded by at least $3.5 million a year through new fees that localities may collect from utilities.

Projects in the bond package include the Route 234 bypass in Prince William County, the Fairfax County Parkway, the Route 50 interchange in Arlington, the Route 28/625 interchange in Loudoun and improvements to the King Street Metro station in Alexandria.

Northern Virginia school officials stand to gain part of their $8 million request to pay higher teacher salaries to reflect the region's relatively high cost of living.