The Virginia House of Delegates yesterday rejected 69-23 budget amendments which the Virginia Senate passed 35-4 Monday. The budget will now go to a Conference Committee of House and Senate leaders from both parties to iron out differences between the House and Senate versions.
Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, and Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Mechanicsville, said the Senate's version of the budget was a compromise plan, and both senators supported the amendments. "It was a compromise deal in order to pass out a budget," McDougle said. "Overall, I thought it was a structurally sound budget that left no two-year gap."
Deeds said Republicans needed Democratic support to get a budget passed in the Senate where the two parties are evenly divided, so the Senate Democrats presented to the Republicans a list of priorities, which he said he thought the Senate had met.
The Democratic priorities included increasing education funding, assuring Medicaid eligibility standards would not become stricter and creating a housing trust fund to help with low-income housing.
Deeds said "the budget which was produced earlier by the Senate... funded K-12 education below 2007 levels," but the amendments made Monday increased education funding.
Deeds said he thought the overall budget would come to about $80 billion.
"[The new money goes] mainly to Northern Virginia and mainly to support personnel," McDougle said. "That money was going to localities one way or another... We did not change the bottom line on the budget."
The Senate rejected an amendment Monday by a vote of 20-19 which would have required insurers to cover the costs of pre-abortion, transabdominal ultrasounds, now required by the state. The amendment would have also appropriated more than $3 million in funding during the next two years for the ultrasounds.
Charles Colgan, D-Prince William County, voted with the Republican senators to defeat the amendment.
McDougle said he voted against the amendment because he is a member of the Finance Committee and members of the Finance Committee usually vote against individual amendments to the entire budget. He said 19 abortion providers in Virginia already provide free ultrasounds, and insurance plans usually cover the ultrasounds.
Because the House rejected the Senate proposal, the deliberation will continue in a Conference Committee between the House and Senate. Deeds predicted the budget negotiations would last a week, and McDougle said they started yesterday afternoon.
After failing to agree on a budget before its March 10 deadline, the General Assembly had to convene in Special Session, which poses extra costs to taxpayers.
Deeds said the additional time spent on the budget would not cost taxpayers a substantial amount, but the money still mattered. He predicted it would cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
Gov. Bob McDonnell's spokesperson Jeff Caldwell said the governor would not comment on individual amendments until he reviewed the General Assembly's final budget.
McDougle said he believed the General Assembly would be able to resolve the issue quickly.
"The difference between the House and Senate [budgets] are not insignificant but not insurmountable," he said.
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