By Sen. Bill Stanley
This week the House and Senate completed work on all the bills filed by their respective members and forwarded the successful bills to the other chamber for their consideration. The House sent 586 bills to the Senate and we sent 468 to the House.
From this point forward, each chamber will spend its time considering legislation from the other side of the Capitol. Out of the hundreds of bills exchanged, one will receive a slightly more intense scrutiny than the others—the budget bill.
The House and Senate versions of amendments to the 2016-2018 budget must be merged into a single bill on which both sides can reach agreement on how to effectively manage and spend state funds. The budget bill is the largest single piece of legislation considered in each session but since we are considering only amendments to an existing two-year budget plan that we approved last year, the process should go a bit more smoothly this year.
The Senate’s proposed budget amendments focused on core services and critical needs, public safety, education, and transportation. Despite having to close a $1.2 billion revenue shortfall, the plan avoids across-the-board reductions for our public schools. It significantly increases funding for mental health initiatives and preserves safety net programs for our hospitals and clinics. And perhaps most importantly, we were able to close the budget shortfall without raising taxes.
One area the plan addresses—and one that we Republicans had set as a priority since we arrived in Richmond for session—was compensation for our law enforcement. Inadequate law enforcement compensation has resulted in localities having difficulty recruiting and retaining new officers. The Senate plan provides across-the-board pay increases for these critical law enforcement professionals in our local communities so they can continue to do the excellent job that they do in keeping us safe.
The Senate budget plan also includes providing the state’s share for a 2% salary increase for our public school teachers. This is a step in the right direction because a pay raise for teachers is long overdue, and we understand fundamentally that more will be needed in the future so that we can continue to recruit and retain good quality teachers in our public school classrooms.
We were also able to re-allocate monies in order to provide supplemental funding for our school divisions where we have had decreases in student populations in Carroll, Halifax and Patrick County schools, as well as schools in the cities of Martinsville, Danville and Galax. This will ensure that these schools will not suffer a loss of funding due to these reductions in overall student populations caused by people leaving our area due to our current economic climate.
In addition, our classified state employees in our region will also receive a 3% pay increase. By prioritizing spending and finding savings, we were able to replace the Governor’s proposed one-time (and insignificant) bonuses for state employees with actual permanent salary increases. And, we did not tie these pay increases to state tax revenue projections, so they will be implemented at the beginning of the new budget year, regardless of actual state revenue collection.
In the Senate budget, we were able to preserve mental/behavioral and community health treatment initiatives for our area, and were able to fund regional economic development initiatives for Southside and Southwest in the Senate plan.
Our budget proposal restores half of the funds to the GO Virginia economic development initiative that Governor McAuliffe had tried to cut in his plan. And locally, we were able to adjust funding calculations to restore full funding to our nursing/retirement facilities in Danville (in response to my and other local legislators’ budget amendment), provide funding for the renovation upgrades to the Danville Institute for Advanced Learning and Research, and provide for the future of the New College Institute in Martinsville.
The Senate plan has already earned strong bipartisan support, as evidenced in the final vote on Thursday when it passed the Senate chamber, 40-0.
Now that crossover has passed, 22 of my bills are now being considered by the House of Delegates. This year I filed 34 pieces of legislation that will help out area and continue to spur economic development, workforce training, improve education and building I-73. Next week I will give you a full update as to how my bills faired in the House of Delegates.
There are still two weeks left before we’re scheduled to adjourn. If you’ll be in Richmond before we head home, please come by our office in Room 313 of the General Assembly Building. Or as always you can send us an e-mail at district20@senate.virginia.gov or by sending a letter to me at Senate of Virginia, P.O. Box 396, Richmond, VA 23219-0396. You can also call us at (804) 698-7520.
These final two weeks are going to be fast-paced. I’ll provide more on the session’s progress in next week’s column. Until then, have a great week.
