A very busy session of the General Assembly adjourned in early March, one week longer than called for by the Constitution. The legislature enacted measures that, among many other things, are intended to improve the Commonwealth’s mental health laws and performance, to tighten up the rules for payday lenders, to increase the penalties for animal fighting, to improve foster care, to better enforce zoning regulations, to eliminate bail for undocumented people who have been charged with a crime, to clamp down on abusive “puppy mills,” and to reduce identity theft. To the relief of many, the General Assembly also scrapped the extremely unpopular “civil remedial fees” or “abuser fees” that were part of the statewide portion of last year’s transportation legislation.

As usual on even numbered years, however, the budget was the focus of greatest attention by concerned citizens. Since I have been serving, the budget battle has largely been fought between senior House and Senate Republican appropriators. Things changed last November. The Senate is now controlled by Democrats, thereby giving Northern Virginia more power by virtue of the seniority of our delegation. Two of the six Senate budget conferees were from Fairfax County—another from Prince William County. While the negotiations went on “only” a week past the deadline, there was satisfaction in the end that the budget was all it could be given the dire revenue circumstances. For example, more money was allocated to at-risk four-year-olds, and more badly needed funding was directed to mental health in light of the Virginia Tech tragedy. The budget also accommodates debt service on a new package of higher education bonds for colleges and universities around the Commonwealth. Both George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College will be able to build sorely needed facilities if the voters approve the new bonded indebtedness this fall.

In Virginia, the state base budget is developed every two years with adjustments coming, as needed, in the second year. We are now well into the last half of the second year, fiscal 08, which started last July 1. Due to the real estate slowdown, we found ourselves about $641 million short of our approved spending plan for the current year. Recognizing this months ago, Governor Kaine trimmed back spending and made recommendations to the General Assembly which included use of the “revenue stabilization fund” or the so-called “rainy day fund.” The changes made by the Governor were largely adopted at the regular session at the same time that the General Assembly was working on a new two-year program.

One of the most noteworthy successes of the two-year budget negotiations was the Senate’s unwillingness to go along with a major change in the House-passed budget that would not have allowed for the full cost of school employees in the school funding formula that is updated in each budget. While the effects of the proposed change would not have been felt in the next two years, over the longer term it would have resulted in Fairfax County losing hundreds of millions in K-12 funding. Every dollar we lose from the State places even more pressure on the local real estate property tax. Furthermore, many of us believe that such a major policy change should not be made in the budget, but should go through the appropriate committee process. In the end, the education budget was properly “re-benchmarked.” I was also able to maintain added funding for the Farifax County Public Library that is shorted due to an unfair funding formula.

While dealing with the budget shortfall dominated the Session, we did get some very important but not totally unexpected news on February 29. The Virginia Supreme Court struck down the linchpin of last year’s compromise transportation legislation. In a unanimous decision, the Court said that the General Assembly can not authorize non-elected authorities to raise taxes. Having passed muster at the trial court level, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority had already begun collecting revenues that were expected to contribute $325 million per year to use solely in Northern Virginia to begin addressing the backlog of needed transportation projects in the region. Whoops! Back to the drawing board. As of this writing, Governor Kaine is contemplating when to bring us back into special session to deal solely with transportation. Several important very road projects on our part of Fairfax County are at stake.

If you have any questions about these or other matters, do not hesitate to contact me at P.O. Box 10628, Franconia, Va. 22310 or (703) 922-6440 or at DelMSickles@house.state.va.us.