Another try at transportation

Richmond Times Dispatch
BY MICHAEL HARDY AND JEFF E. SCHAPIRO

Virginia lawmakers will try again in late September to find new money for transportation, but few expect much to be accomplished because of enduring legislative gridlock.

"We're back to where we were when we left here; nothing's changed," said Del. John S. Reid, R-Henrico, who adamantly opposes higher taxes for highways and mass transit.

"It's going to be wonderful," cracked Senate Republican Floor Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. of James City County, a proponent of a tax-enriched remedy for transportation. "I'm not sure I can restrain myself."

. . .

The announcement yesterday that the Republican-dominated General Assembly will return Sept. 27, perhaps for four days, came as Gov. Timothy M. Kaine appealed anew for a consensus on transportation.

"We can all be sure of one thing: The problems we face will only get harder and more expensive to solve if we fail to come together," Kaine, a Democrat, told the legislature's money committees.

"I am also seeking your partnership to complete the unfinished business of the regular legislative session: enacting a comprehensive transportation solution," said Kaine, referring to the three-month overtime during which lawmakers failed to reach agreement on major long-term funding for transportation.

In late June, only two days before the legal deadline to enact a budget and avoid a shutdown of government services, the assembly completed work on a two-year $74 billion budget that set aside $568 million for transportation.

However, most of that money would be taken off the table unless lawmakers reach a deal by Nov. 1 on long-term aid for the transportation network. It has received little new funding for 20 years but has been beset by growing congestion.

. . .

Kaine's 25-minute speech to the House Appropriations, Senate Finance and House Finance committees seemed to change few, if any, minds.

"It was a rehashing of the transportation thing," said Del. Phillip A. Hamilton, R-Newport News, a budget negotiator. "He offered no suggestions; at some point, he's going to have to weigh in some ideas."

Sen. Charles R. Hawkins, R-Pittsylvania, an expert in transportation funding, signaled that he expects little to emerge from the September session.

"But I always live in hope," he said.

Kaine's bid yesterday to jump-start the transportation debate was drowned out by partisan attacks in the House of Delegates.

While the assembly quickly approved Kaine's revisions to measures repealing the estate tax and providing tax credits to Virginians who pledge not to develop open space, the House pounced on a budgetary embarrassment for the governor and his predecessor.

The House floor session was dominated by Republican railing against a bookkeeping blunder that threatened to cut public school funding by $60 million this year.

Kaine, in his prepared remarks, again took responsibility for the mistake and suggested later to reporters that top budget and tax officials could lose their jobs if it happens again.

"There's going to be change in management," Kaine warned.

. . .

The primary target of House Republican scorn was former Gov. Mark R. Warner, a Democrat who pledged to restore discipline to the state's finances after what he termed the budgetary sleights of hand of Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore.

But John M. Bennett, Warner's secretary of finance, has taken the rap, saying he should have informed his boss about one of the errors discovered in December.

Now the top financial official at Virginia Commonwealth University, Bennett said Warner did not know about the miscue and no one told Kaine.
House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, accused the Kaine administration of a cover-up; that knowledge of the miscalculation, discovered by school officials in Fairfax County last month, may have been widespread.

"Governor, addressing this transgression with a wink and a nod is not acceptable," said Griffith.
The Republican broadside, which continued through the afternoon at a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee, also was seen by members of both parties as an attempt by the House GOP to divert attention from its perceived inaction on transportation.

Indeed, House Republicans introduced a bill to correct the school-funding problem, then refused to act on it. The state Senate passed a similar bill with no debate.

The appropriations committee's chairman, Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr., R-Fairfax, accused the administration of withholding from lawmakers information on the budget error.

"Was it embarrassment? Or was it something more Machiavellian?" said Callahan. "From my perspective, slightly paraphrasing a line from 'Cool Hand Luke,' 'What we have here is a failure to communicate.'"