Bleak budget choices

Differing versions of a state budget passed the House of Delegates and Senate on Thursday, and regardless of the final document that emerges from the General Assembly and heads for the desk of Gov. Bob McDonnell, local governments face some bleak choices as they prepare their own spending blueprints.

One thing is sure: Public education, the most important governmental investment for the future, will take an unprecedented $700 million hit that could result in the loss of up to 28,000 jobs, according to the Virginia Education Association -- not to mention the critical services that will be lost due to another $300 million in cuts to health and human resources programs. These reductions have gone way beyond prudent cost-cutting.

With the House of Delegates and McDonnell hewing to a hard line against any tax increases, the pressure to raise new revenue will fall on city and town councils and boards of supervisors, some of whom are loudly complaining about being left holding the bag.

The Virginia Association of Counties has calculated how much real estate taxes would have to be hiked to make up for the cuts in state funding. For a house assessed at $250,000, a homeowner would have to pay another $338 per year in Shenandoah County, $138 in Frederick, $208 in Warren and $104 in Winchester.

Those types of increases are unlikely in the current economy, which is largely responsible for the budget crisis. But also to blame are rigid tax policies in Richmond that have produced such grotesqueries as the "abuser fees" of two years ago or the ongoing struggle over former Gov. Jim Gilmore's efforts to abolish the local car tax. The mess left by that was partially cleaned up by his successor, Mark R. Warner, with $1.5 billion in tax increases, and voters weighed in on their differing approaches by giving Warner a 65 percent victory over Gilmore in the U.S Senate race of 2008.

Perhaps the people of Virginia are actually willing to pay for the services they expect from state and local governments.