McDonnell proposal looks to remove about 500 service position employees

Thousands of state and local government employees face layoffs because of the severe budget cuts.

Just how many jobs will be lost should become clearer by Saturday when the General Assembly is scheduled to adopt a budget for the 2010-2012 biennium.

Since the recession began, the state’s general fund budget has been reduced by $7 billion. The assembly is wrestling with an additional $4 billion in cuts.

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposal to close the state’s funding shortfall referred to the elimination of about 500 jobs, including mostly direct-care and support positions at various state mental hospitals.

Those proposed cuts likely will be minimized. Both the House of Delegates and the state Senate propose keeping open the Commonwealth Center for Adolescents in Staunton, although an adolescent center in Marion would be closed.

But McDonnell’s proposal did not convey the larger job losses that will result from funding cuts to localities.

The direst layoff forecast comes from the Virginia Education Association, which represents teachers and other education employees. Robley Jones, lobbyist for the association, said 15,000 would lose their jobs under the Senate version of the budget, and 22,000 in the House version, which would cut public education more severely.

McDonnell’s budget proposals would have resulted in 28,000 lost education jobs, Jones said.

In a speech last week in the House, Del. M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, who is a teacher and vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, disputed the VEA’s numbers, saying they were exaggerated.

Most of the proposed funding cuts fall on public education and health care, because previous rounds of budget reductions did not harm them as much as other parts of state government, such as colleges and public safety.

In unveiling a package of tax credits and other bills designed to create new jobs, McDonnell and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling estimated that the package would create 29,300 jobs within two years, a figure that some critics say is overly optimistic.

But even so, the number of state and local government jobs lost through the proposed budget cuts is likely to far surpass that figure.

Asked Tuesday whether a tax increase might have outweighed the negative impact of the budget cuts, McDonnell replied, “It is not sound economic policy to be raising ... taxes in a recession. The citizens cannot sustain it in a tough economy.”

He noted that Virginia passed a major tax increase in 2004. People also feel public spending is excessive, he said.

In his outgoing budget proposal for 2010-2012, then-Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed a $2 billion income-tax surcharge, but the House rejected the proposal.

As for pending job cuts, the Virginia Association of Counties is not getting into a numbers game.

“There are too many variables,” Executive Director James D. Campbell said. “We don’t know how the individual jurisdictions are going to respond. We don’t have a read at this point.”

R. Michael Amyx of the Virginia Municipal League had a similar reaction. The VML doesn’t know at this point, he said.

Ron Jordan, lobbyist for the Virginia Governmental Employees Association, said the Senate budget is so vague that he could not determine how many layoffs its cuts would force. At this point, the House budget would result in just 88 layoffs, resulting from the closing of prison camps in Rustburg and Haynesville.

The Senate also wants to close a correctional facility but hasn’t said which one.

The Virginia Association of Community Services Boards estimated that local government employees and private providers the boards work with would have lost almost 800 jobs under Kaine’s proposed budget.

There would be fewer jobs loss under the Senate and House budget bills, said Mary Ann Bergeron, executive director of the organization.

While largely spared the budget ax, local sheriffs departments would lose some jobs under the House bill because it did not restore about $23 million in stimulus funding that went to law enforcement in the previous budget, said John Jones, executive director of the Virginia Sheriffs Association.

Both bodies have decided to keep open five state parks that McDonnell had proposed shutting down.

Tyler Whitley is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.