The version of the Virginia state budget that resulted from a week and a half of discussion and compromise by a joint committee of conferees was passed in both the House of Delegates and the Senate Sunday.
The joint committee of conferees finished hammering out the differences between the House's and Senate's versions of the state budget a day over the scheduled session time.
Vincent F. Callahan Jr., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, voted in favor of the budget that resulted from the conferee session.
"All in all, it's a pretty good budget," Callahan said.
Five conferees from each house were selected on Feb. 16 and the session ran from the 17th to the 27th. Determining how much funding to allocate to transportation was the largest concern of the conferees.
"Transportation was the number one issue for us the entire session," Del. M. Kirkland Cox, R-Chesterfield, said. "We felt that it had not been addressed properly last session."
The conferees came to a final compromise of $850 million for transportation, some of which will be ongoing funding. These funds will go to Virginia mass transit, among other transportation projects.
"This is the largest increase [in founding] for transportation in the last 20 years," said William J. Howell, Speaker of the House of Delegates, R-Stafford.
The conferees also worked toward eliminating the retail remittance tax, a tax that required retailers who made over $1.3 million in annual sales to pay their monthly retail tax a month early. The level of sales earnings at which companies were required to pay the accelerated sales tax was raised to $50 million, exempting approximately 97 percent of Virginia retailers, Cox said.
A relatively easy budget issue to deal with was a salary increase for state employees, Sen. Charles J. Colgan, D- 29th district, said.
The committee stipulated in their final version of the budget that all state employees would receive a 3 percent salary increase, among other benefits, and teachers will receive a 3 percent salary raise as well, Colgan said.
Two highly contested issues were the House's commitment of $750,000 to the Virginia Horse Center, which was passed. The Senate's request to include an underground tunnel from the Senate house to the capital in the $85 million renovation of the state capital building was not passed, Colgan said.
These issues were partially responsible for the session going a day longer than scheduled, Cox said.
The committee also determined how much funding would be included in the budget for Medicaid and Chesapeake Bay conservation and clean up.
The budget bill is on its way to Governor Warner, who can veto and amend the bill during the next session of the General Assembly, beginning April 6.
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