Creigh Deeds: Session report

The 2011 session is rapidly winding down with adjournment scheduled on the 26th of February. The last few days of the session will be spent working out differences between House and Senate versions of bills. Major differences remain on some critical matters.

The largest responsibility of the legislature each session is to pass a balanced budget. In recent years, as Virginia’s economy has struggled in recession, getting a budget passed has been more difficult. Growth in state revenues had been virtually non-existent, and we have seen the general fund, the money used for public education, public health and education, retract now to 2005 or 2006 levels. This year we have seen some growth, and that is a positive sign.

The primary differences between the House and Senate budget proposals revolve around how to spend the increase. The House opted to put the bulk of new revenue in transportation. The Senate chose to restore some of the difficult cuts we made in recent years to public education and health care. Reconciliation of the budget differences will be the main work over the next week. Among those differences are funding for public broadcasting, Medicaid, public education, and compensation.

Included in the budget is the General Assembly’s response to the long-term problem we have with the solvency of the Virginia Retirement System (VRS). There should be no alarm. VRS is sound, but a Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission (JLARC) study showed in December that within the next fifteen years or so Virginia has significant unfunded liabilities. Last year, on the recommendation of the Governor, the General Assembly reduced contributions to VRS by $620 million. This year, the Senate and the House both made a concerted effort to begin repaying that money to VRS.

In December, the Governor made news when he indicated that for the first time in 28 years state employees would be required to contribute to the retirement fund. His plan, which called for a five percent contribution to be offset by three percent pay increases, has been rejected by both the House and Senate. Still, there are differences in the approaches taken by both bodies.

I have spent a lot of time over the past number of years in my newsletters talking about transportation. We don’t need to rehash all of the details of what is frankly a crisis that affects our long-term economic health. A transportation bill has worked its way through both the House and the Senate and, while there are differences, I am confident that a bill will pass. I have not felt like I could support either version of the bill for any number of reasons. First, the bill relies on four billion dollars in debt and breaks Virginia’s long-standing tradition of being a “pay as you go” state. Second, maxing out our debt capacity will tie the hands of future governors and legislatures and limits flexibility to address future needs. Third, the general fund will likely be raided in the future just to service the debt. In fact, the House plan takes $150 million out of the GF immediately.

This approach to transportation represents a short-term view. We have about $20 billion in back-logged projects that exist statewide. We have a shortage of maintenance funds that threaten our ability to maintain our current transportation infrastructure. Rather than tackle the problem head on, we are passing a $4 billion debt package. As I pointed out before, the money will be spent by 2016, but we will not complete repayment until 2039. Only three projects, two in Hampton Roads and one in Northern Virginia, are guaranteed to be completed with the borrowed money. A list of over 900 projects has been shopped around, raising hope that much needed projects will advance as well, but there is no guarantee that will occur. What I see is that by 2016 when the money is spent, we will be left holding the bill and we will still have a crisis in transportation.

A major accomplishment of this legislative session has been the passage of a bill requiring insurance companies to provide coverage for children with autism. Unless autism affects your family or you know someone who is affected, it is difficult to understand the pressure this disease places on people. The overwhelming body of evidence suggests the earlier you start providing therapy to a child with autism the more likely the child is to lead a productive life. The bill passed in Virginia is the most restrictive in the country, yet to many families it offers real hope. I think this is a significant accomplishment and congratulate Senator Janet Howell, a Fairfax Democrat, and Delegate Tag Greason, a Loudon Republican, for their leadership on this issue.

Creigh Deeds is a member of the Virginia Senate.

Creigh Deeds: Session update

The Virginia General Assembly works as close as is possible to the way representative government was intended. Sessions are short, fast-paced and members, by necessity, have to earn their principal income outside of government. Members of the General Assembly come from all walks of life and must balance family and work with legislative service. It is not always easy.

This past week we reached the crossover in the legislative session, and the Senate and House passed amendments to the budget. I am proud the Senate’s proposal begins the process of restoring fiscal health to the Virginia Retirement System by accelerating repayment to the fund. We also increased funding to K-12 and higher education and restored some balance to our provision of core services in Virginia, without a tax increase. The House budget reflects different priorities, and the next two weeks will be spent in large part reconciling those differences.

The House and the Senate passed transportation bills. The differences between the plans passed in the House and Senate are significant, but I can report to you that I could not support either one. The passage of the transportation bill is critically important; it will help us begin to address the backlog of projects and create jobs to jumpstart our economy, but the plan is flawed. The House takes money from education, public safety, and health care to fund transportation. The Senate version rejects that approach, but still relies heavily on debt. Under the version passed by the Senate, the money, about $4 billion, will be spent by 2016. Virginia’s debt service will exceed the five percent cap. Debt service on the bonds will not hit its peak until 2028 and will not be completed until 2039. I fear that future Governors and legislators will have to raise taxes just to make the debt service payments. Furthermore, by 2016 we will be in exactly the same posture we are now, with a backlog of projects and no sustained source of funding for transportation. And the only projects guaranteed to be funded are in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. Transportation is a statewide issue.

I can report to you that my bills moved along with a fair amount of success in the first half of the Session:

• SB 890, 900, and 901 relate to the proposed City of Alleghany Highlands and will allow the citizens of Alleghany and Covington to decide whether to create a consolidated city. Those bills have passed the Senate and should be voted on by the full House next week.
• SB 902 will allow retired judges to act as pro bono counsel in civil matters. That bill has passed the Senate and is pending in the House.
• SB 903 and 904 seek to close some gaps in prosecutions with respect to domestic violence and subsequent offenses by felons. These bills were brought to me by prosecutors from Campbell County and Lynchburg and have also passed the Senate.
• SB 905 and SB 1234 were brought to me from the City of Charlottesville by a bike safety committee. I struck SB 905 to try to build consensus within the bicycling and law enforcement communities around the application of reckless driving laws and bicyclists. SB 1234 is pending in a House Transportation Subcommittee.
• SB 906 is a response to dating violence and the tragedies we have witnessed throughout Virginia. This bill updates family life education curriculum and is a product of students in the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership. This bill has passed the Senate and is moving through the House.
• SB 1229 creates an incentive for clean energy manufacturing job creation. The bill was incorporated into SB 1360, which has passed the Senate and is awaiting consideration in the House.
• SB 1232 is an effort to restore integrity to the land conservation tax credit program. This bill has passed the Senate and is moving through the House.
• SB 1233 elevates the retirement status of conservation officers who work in state parks to that of other law enforcement officers.
• SB 1426 would require those found guilty of child pornography offenses to pay restitution to the victim.
• SB 1450 requires the Department of Taxation to put fillable tax forms on the internet. This will create a huge convenience for taxpayers and make the filing process more efficient.
• SB 1451 creates transparency for parents whose children have been admitted to behavioral health facilities around Virginia by requiring the state to post information about licensing and investigations.
• SJR 321 is my annual effort to reform the redistricting process. This bill has passed the Senate and is scheduled to be heard in Subcommittee next week.
• SJR 355 is an attempt to create more efficiency in state government by moving to a zero-based budgeting process. This resolution has passed the Senate and is moving through the House.

It continues to be my honor to serve you. If we can be of assistance in the last two weeks of the legislative session, feel free to contact me or my legislative aide, Tracy Eppard, at (804) 698-7525 or by e-mail at district25@senate.virginia.gov.

Creigh Deeds: Session report

The 2011 General Assembly session is racing toward conclusion. We are now at the halfway point, the crossover, when each house must complete work on its own bills. We are just days away from having competing versions of the budget adopted and finalizing actions on a number of controversial issues. Intensifying the work is the knowledge that after we complete the 2011 regular session later this month, we will be called back into a special session to redraw legislative and congressional districts.

The U.S. Constitution requires a census every ten years and the subsequent redrawing of congressional districts. Our state Constitution similarly requires the redistricting of House of Delegates and Senate districts upon completion of the census. With the census figures just released this week, we now know more about where the population shifts occurred. While the overall population figure for Virginia has been available for some time, the precinct level information has just been made available, so work on redistricting can begin in earnest. This is one of the toughest times in politics. Some districts gained population significantly and will have to shrink; others lost population and will have to grow. For many years I have advocated for reforming the process by which we draw district lines. My ideas found favor in the Senate, but have continually been rejected in the House of Delegates. This year the governor appointed an advisory commission on redistricting. Although I am uncertain exactly what role the commission will play, it is certainly useful to have more ideas as the process unfolds.

With the task of redistricting looming, we still have a significant amount of work remaining in the 2011 session. Constituents and special interest groups have filled the halls the last few weeks to talk about budget priorities. Over the weekend, the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will release amendments to the state’s spending plan for the next year and a half. Central to those discussions is the governor’s transportation plan. The Virginia highway system was created during governor Harry Byrd’s administration in the 1920s and utilized cash to fund projects and road maintenance. Debt in Virginia has been reserved for capital projects, like buildings on college campuses, state office buildings, improvements in state parks, and mental hospitals.

While the governor’s proposal relies heavily on debt, the use of bonds to fund highways in Virginia is not entirely new. During the years when governor Gilmore was in office, bonds serviced by anticipated federal revenue were issued. We have grown more reliant on these short-term bonds during the last twelve years. In 2007, the General Assembly attempted to address our transportation problems with House Bill 3202. The legislation included longer-term bonds that we did not begin issuing until 2010 because of the economic slowdown.

The bond issue is of particular concern because we are almost at our debt capacity limit, which stipulates our debt service payments may not exceed five percent of general fund revenues. In order to move forward with issuing bonds, the governor proposed looking at the five percent debt cap as an average of general fund revenues over a period of ten years. The governor, therefore, proposes to issue over the next three years $3 billion in bonds approved in 2007 that are serviced by car insurance premium taxes together with an additional $l.1 billion in bonds to be serviced by anticipated future federal revenues. The governor’s package will cause total state debt servicing to exceed the five percent cap by 2014.

The governor’s transportation plan has gained a lot of support from Democrats and Republicans. Many agree with me that there is no quicker way to invigorate the economy and create jobs than to get a transportation package passed. We have transportation needs all over Virginia that must be addressed, and the bond package could advance about nine hundred projects that are already in the Six Year Plan. However, I am very concerned about the long term consequences of issuing debt to fund highway construction. I am particularly concerned that much of the debt is relying on future federal revenue. The 2010 elections reflected growing concern about the accumulation of debt and what is viewed as out of control deficient spending; yet, in 2011 we are relying on more deficient spending to get a transportation bill passed in Virginia. Furthermore, to rely on the federal government for increased funding is just not sound public policy given the federal government’s transportation trust fund has only been made whole by transfers from the general fund for the last two years. As we head into a vote on the transportation plan, I am trying to weigh all considerations.

It continues to be a high honor for me to serve in the Senate of Virginia. During the past three weeks, I have received thousands of emails from constituents about various bills and look forward to your continued input. If you would like to share your views or set up a time to visit the Capitol, please contact me or my legislative aide, Tracy Eppard, at (804) 698-7525 or by email at district25@senate.virginia.gov.

Creigh Deeds is a member of the Virginia State Senate.

Creigh Deeds: Session newsletter

The midpoint in the 2011 session is fast approaching. Under the procedural rules adopted at the beginning of every session, the House of Delegates and the Senate must take final action on bills introduced in that body by crossover. The process would not work without self imposed time limits and rules, so by February 8 each house must finish work on its own legislation and then the bills crossover for consideration in the other house. Each body will complete its version of the budget by February 10.

One overarching theme this session is the focus on job creation. This past week, the Democratic Senate Caucus, of which I am part, announced a jobs package, including a number of measures designed to invigorate job creation in the Commonwealth. Many of these ideas are not new and, hopefully, will garner bi-partisan support.

SB 1443 – Creates a preference for Virginia businesses when the Commonwealth contracts to buy goods and services.

SB 1460 – Establishes a program for unemployed workers to continue receiving unemployment compensation benefits while participating in work force skills enhancement training from a potential employer.

SB 1473 – Establishes a voluntary program between employers and employees that creates employee-employer-matched retraining savings accounts.

Loan Guaranty Program – Increases funding from $1 million to $5 million.

SB 1440 – Creates the Commonwealth Innovation Investment Fund to create, attract, retain, expand, and enhance technology research, innovation, and economic development.

Needless to say, there are lots of other ideas that have been introduced this session with the focus on creating jobs, and I am hopeful that we can get significant work done that will help stimulate the economy.

A second dominant issue is the building bipartisan support for the passage of a transportation plan. As I have discussed many times, in my view, this is the quickest way for us to create jobs and ensure long-term economic growth in Virginia. Transportation infrastructure will help us attract the best paying jobs and is an important investment in the Commonwealth; however, we have to be careful about the package we adopt. The Governor introduced a plan that will issue $4 billion in bonds primarily for road construction and maintenance. This is significant because typically Virginia has been a “pay as you go” state with respect to transportation, and many of these bonds would be of 25 year duration. Long-term debt is not the way to pay for roads that will need resurfacing many times before the debt is retired.

The administration acknowledged this week that the issuance of transportation bonds will for the first time push our debt service over the five percent limit which has been imposed as a matter of policy since the Commonwealth first started issuing debt over 40 years ago. The cap, which is somewhat artificial in nature, limits Virginia’s debt service payments to five percent of the General Fund revenues in any given year. The Governor wants to change the model for debt servicing to ensure Virginia’s debt service does not exceed the average of five percent over a ten year period. Under this proposal, debt service in the Commonwealth will exceed 5.5 percent of General Fund revenues in fiscal year 2014. While this may seem insignificant, in my view the consequences of reliance on debt could bring long term change to the Commonwealth, and I believe we need to consider seriously the implications of this public policy change.

This past week has been busy for me. Many of the measures I introduced have been considered:

The bills that would allow the citizens of Alleghany Highlands to consider consolidation have moved forward. While the bills are precedent setting and somewhat controversial, they passed the Senate unanimously. The legislation has generated interest because a number of stressed local governments around the state are considering ways to provide services more efficiently and are looking at consolidation options.

My three year effort to create a clean energy manufacturing tax credit appears to be on the road to success this year. My bill, SB 1229, was incorporated into legislation introduced, at the Governor’s request, by Senator Walter Stosch of Henrico. I think this job creating incentive will finally be enacted.

My long time effort to increase retirement benefits for conservation officers with law enforcement responsibilities who work in state parks is still alive, though with a hefty price tag. I am not confident we will move the matter forward this year, but we have laid the groundwork for future success.

So that people and businesses can more easily access tax forms, I filed a bill requesting the Department of Taxation to put all forms online in PDF form. The Department estimates the bill will cost over a $100,000 a year to implement but agrees with the intent of the bill. We are trying to work on language to phase in the requirement to keep the cost reasonable. This will increase efficiency and convenience for taxpayers around the Commonwealth.

My measure to request the Governor to develop a zero-based budgeting plan has advanced out of subcommittee. Frankly, I think that this could, if enacted, save the Commonwealth upwards of $1 billion a year. This idea has worked in other states, and I am encouraged to have received support thus far.

With SB 1451, I am attempting to provide transparency for facilities and group homes that serve children with behavioral health issues. Recently, a number of problems within some of these homes have been reported in the press. I introduced this bill at the request of a number of constituents, and it is has drawn support from around the state. The bill, which would require the state to publish licensing reports online, has advanced through subcommittee. We are still debating the potential cost.

For a number of years now I have been on a crusade to reform the redistricting process. I am pleased to report my measure to constitutionally take redistricting outside the legislative process has advanced from committee and will come up for approval soon in the full Senate.

I have heard from many constituents about a number of important bills this session. Every vote I take is informed by your input and the debate during committee meetings and on the floor of the Senate. The process works best when legislators keep an open mind and are willing to hear all sides before rendering a decision. I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to engage in this process. If you have questions, concerns, or comments, or if you would like to schedule a trip to see your General Assembly at work, please feel free to contact me or my legislative aide, Tracy Eppard, at (804) 698-7525 or by email at district25@senate.virginia.gov.

Creigh Deeds is a member of the Virginia State Senate.

Creigh Deeds: Session report

The regular 2011 session of the General Assembly began on the second Wednesday of January. The day was full of pomp and circumstance and some matters of substance. We swore in a new state senator, Bill Stanley, from Franklin County, who was elected to fill the seat of newly elected Congressman Robert Hurt. The Courts of Justice Committee met to certify judges who are up for reelection, including Judge Sanner of Orange, Judge Heatwole of Waynesboro, Judge Tucker of Botetourt, Judge Morton of Culpeper, Judge Whitlock of Louisa, Judge Farrar of Nelson, and Judge Garrett of Amherst. All of them serve the area I represent.

This session we will have to deal with big money issues. While the budget situation is not as dire as in the recent past, we are still facing a shortfall. There is no shortage of demands for services as Virginia’s population continues to grow. In addition, we have a huge imbalance in the Virginia Retirement System that must be addressed. I have heard from many people on various demands on the budget and on the VRS issues. We also have an ongoing transportation dilemma.

Discussions about transportation primarily focus on Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads where the need is admittedly critical. However, there are transportation needs throughout Virginia. In the Route 29 corridor, residents south of Charlottesville, particularly in Lynchburg and Danville, demand a bypass around the Charlottesville area. And while a bypass has been on the books for many years, the roadway as planned does not circumvent the congested area. Furthermore, the cost has grown so dramatically that the needed improvements will not be made unless a transportation plan is adopted.

The ongoing improvements on Interstate 81 and Interstate 64 are being paid for with Federal stimulus funds. We need long term solutions for both corridors.

Likewise, at the western end of the district, improvements in the Route 220 corridor are often overlooked. For example, the single most important project to the Alleghany Highlands is completion of the four lane between Eagle Rock and Clifton Dale Park. This project has been discussed since at least the 1960s, and it was in the six year plan as recently as the 1980s. Throughout the 1990s and into the 21^{st century, the Boards of Supervisors of both Botetourt and Alleghany repeatedly called for the completion of the four lanes because the project could bring real economic growth to the region. During the Gilmore administration, former Senator Trumbo and I earmarked money in a bond package for improvements in the 220 corridor. While multiple issues must still be worked out, such as the exact route and a plan for minimization of bridges, the bottom line is we cannot go forward until we have a comprehensive transportation funding plan for Virginia.}

In contemplating how to address transportation, I resurrected an issue that I promoted during my gubernatorial campaign. Other states, like Texas and Illinois, have invoked a method of budgeting called zero-based budgeting and have realized tremendous savings using this technique. Simply put, zero-based budgeting requires agencies to justify every expenditure. I think, as efficient as government is in Virginia, we could probably save close to $1 billion a year if we started using zero-based budgeting.

During the 2009 campaign, the Governor agreed with me on the merits of this budgeting tool, and I am hopeful he will agree with me now. I have introduced a resolution calling for the Governor to develop a zero-based budgeting plan by the end of the year, with the hope we can use identified savings for transportation. Before we ask taxpayers to pay more, or borrow money necessitating taxpayers to pay more in the future, we ought to identify savings that we can use for transportation.

Zero-based budgeting has also been promoted by Delegate Bell of Staunton who has introduced similar legislation in the House of Delegates. While we have a number of important budget matters to address, including preserving the extension service, rectifying the imbalance in VRS, and minimizing impacts on our localities and schools, I am hopeful we can identify savings to help us meet the most significant economic development challenge we have: transportation.

It continues to be an honor for me to serve in the Senate of Virginia. The legislature will be in session through February 26. I can be reached at (804) 698-7525 or by email at district25@senate.virginia.gov. My legislative aide is Tracy Eppard. If you have questions, concerns, or comments, or if you would like to schedule a trip to see your General Assembly at work, please feel free to contact us.

Column by State Sen. Creigh Deeds