Facing a $641 million budget shortfall, Governor Tim Kaine announced yesterday $300 million in spending reductions and savings. The remainder of the shortfall will be made up via withdrawal of approximately $303 million from the Revenue Stabilization Fund, also known as the rainy day fund. It is this part of the budget-balancing moves proposed by the Governor that is creating some heartburn.
The Governor points out that $700 million has been put into the rainy day fund since he took office in January 2006. He believes that further cuts will jeopardize law enforcement, health and education. The “No” caucus in the House is already gearing up for a fight over the use of these funds.
Expect lots of fireworks come January.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
This is a good starting point. I am of the opinion that another $300+ million could be cut from the budget. That said, some money is going to come out of the “Rainy Day Fund,” it’s just a matter of how much. We’ll have batter idea of that number in just a few weeks.
Brian, that begs an important question: “where?” The Governor made 5% cuts across the board with a few critical exceptions: public safety (EMTs, firefighters, police), non-discretionary healthcare, and K-12 public education. He’s leaving hundreds of empty jobs vacant so as not to take on new expenditures that were budgetted into the Commonwealth’s expenses for the fiscal year. He made cuts to his own office’s operating budget. His finance team even figured out that they can generate millions of extra dollars in interest revenues if they disburse funds for transportation out of the general fund gradually as they become needed, rather than transferring the total balance up front to DOT.
And he still had to fire a bunch of people just to get half way to a $600m budget shortfall.
So I’m really curious, since you’re of the educated opinion that another $300+ million can be cut from the budget: where, precisely?
anonymous,
You may wish to look up the definition of “beg the question” (pardon the formulation). It does mean what you think it means.
As for cuts, how about no funds for horse farms, museums, theaters, wildflower planting, mandatory pre-k education , various state supported welfare programs, and so on. Heck, we might even be able to get by with just state appointed board to deal with potatoes, rather than the three we have now.
We should also remember that this budget shortfall is occurring only because revenue growth is about half of what the Gov’s office predicted. I suspect that we are talking about cuts in the growth of spending at least as much we are taking about actual cuts in spending.
How’s that? By the way, got a name?