The General Assembly session will start  on Wednesday, January 13. The session is scheduled to adjourn on Saturday, March 13, making this a 60 day or “long session.”

Governor-elect Bob McDonnell will be inaugurated on Saturday, January 16.

There are 20 new members of the House of Delegates. Tomorrow, there are special elections to fill the seats of Ken Stolle in Virginia Beach (now the Sheriff of Virginia Beach) and Attorney-General-elect Ken Cuccinelli in Fairfax. In the General Assembly Building, the staff is supposedly accommodating 63 moves, between new members moving in and existing members shifting to more desirable office locations.

In addition, we are in a very challenging economic environment. Governor Kaine introduced his budget on December 17. This budget  contains both SB/HB 29, the “caboose bill” or the budget bill for the fiscal year that ends June 30, 2010 as well as SB/HB 30, the budget bill for the upcoming biennium beginning July 1, 2010 and ending June 30, 2012. The “caboose bill” reduces the budget we are in by another $340 million, making the cuts for this biennium to total $7.6 billion. The upcoming proposed biennial budget for 2010-12 is actually $2 billion dollars less than the budget that was approved for the 2006-2008 biennium.

Governor Kaine’s introduced budget for the Virginia Community College System does not add any additional cuts this fiscal year to the reductions that have already taken place this biennium. In the upcoming biennium, another  reduction of $129 million is proposed. 

The budget introduced by Governor Kaine will be modified significantly before all is said and done. The General Assembly members will submit budget amendments, and the new Governor will submit budget amendments. The House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will then review the amendments and release their own versions of the budget on February 21. These bills will then be approved by the House of Delegates and Senate, cross to the opposite house, be rejected, and end up in conference committee. The report of the budget conferees will likely be made public on March 9. A lot can happen between the beginning of the session and March 9. 

An idea currently being discussed that is gaining momentum is a possible change to the current biennial budget process and calendar—changing the next biennium to 2011-13 and not 2010-12. Delegate Albert Pollard currently has proposed HB 135 and Senator Ryan McDougle has proposed SB 102 which would enact such a change. 

One of the key elements financing the 2010-2012 biennial budget is Governor Kaine’s proposal to zero out the state reimbursement to localities for car tax and replace it with a local option on the state income tax.  This component alone is worth $1.9 billion over the biennium. Without this component, the budget would need to be adjusted down another $1.9 billion for 2010-12. Kaine’s budget also includes some other revenue adjustments such as an increase on the E-911 phone tax, an increase in the recordation tax, and an increased fee in insurance premiums. Budget amendments proposed by Governor-elect McDonnell will likely include revenue derived from the sale and privatization of ABC stores. A good discussion of the budget proposal that McDonnell will inherit was included in the lead story in the 1-10-10 Richmond Times-Dispatch. 

Posted by Ellen Davenport