As the budget impasse in the Virginia General Assembly continues, its effects already are being felt at the University and in the City of Charlottesville.
Both local governments and public universities must not only deal with the possibility of multiple budget proposals in the General Assembly, but also with the chance that the legislature will not pass any budget for several more weeks.
At the University, the Budget Office will present its recommended tuition structure for 2004 to the Board of Visitors April 15, a key date since the University's educational budget is driven by tuition and state appropriations, according to Vice President for Management and Budget Colette Sheehy.
"We're going to present a tuition structure which we believe is appropriate, but hopefully they will have done something by then," Sheehy said.
The Board of Visitors will approve the entire budget at its June meeting, Sheehy said.
Sheehy said the University would welcome the Senate budget, which provides more funding for public education than the House version.
"The Senate has an overall revenue appropriation which we believe we can work within," Sheehy said.
While the University would not be able to meet as many of its needs under the House budget, Sheehy said that neither budget necessarily would cause a change in tuition rates.
"I'm not sure we would necessarily change our tuition recommendation versus the House and the Senate budget," Sheehy said.
Sheehy said the University would be unsure how to deal with a potential state government shutdown July 1. While University employees also are state employees, they usually are paid from non-state sources.
"We do have control over a lot of our budget," Sheehy said.
The delay in passing a budget also affects Charlottesville because the City must pass its own budget by April 15, City Councilor Blake Caravati said.
"It's already caused a lot of problems," Caravati said. "Every day it gets worse. We're operating in a limbo."
Caravati, a Democrat, sharply criticized the budget proposed by the House of Delegates, which he said contains a $500 to $600 million tax increase, lower than the increases proposed by the Senate and Gov. Mark R. Warner.
"The House budget proposed is totally irresponsible," Caravati said. "It's so ideologically based -- in my mind it's definitely not the Virginia way."
The City already will receive about $3 to $5 million less from the state, which represents about five percent of the City budget, Caravati said. He added that passage of the House budget would increase City budget cuts but passage of either the Senate budget or Warner's budget would slightly reduce the cuts.
Caravati and the other three Democratic councilors have passed a resolution urging the General Assembly to pass a budget. According to Caravati, the City's representatives in the General Assembly, Del. Mitch Van Yahres and Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, have supported the Senate's proposed budget, which contains a $2.6 billion tax increase. Both legislators are Democrats.
If the impasse extends into July and the state government shuts down, Caravati said city government would not be directly affected but it would not be able to implement programs involving state funding.
"We can only operate at the levels that we fund at," Caravati said. "Any state-supported programs or employees would be shut down."
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