Budget: Where U.Va. stands
Process a long and winding road
By Dan Heuchert
The
news about the state budget seems ever-changing. One governor proposes
a budget; the next one changes it. Then legislators rewrite the
budget altogether. Numbers shift constantly. One day, you may be
getting a raise. The next day, you’re not. Then it’s not
a raise, but a bonus, or perhaps some time off. It can be frustratingly
confusing.
“Laws
are like sausages,” the late German Chancellor Otto von Bismark
once said. “It is better not to see them being made.”
With apologies to the squeamish, then, what follows is a primer
on Virginia’s budget process, with an eye to salary matters
as an example of how things change in the process.
Virginia
operates on a two-year budget cycle. In even-numbered years, the
General Assembly meets for a 60-day “long session” to
consider a 24-month spending plan, to take effect July 1, the beginning
of the state’s fiscal year. In odd years, the legislature generally
meets for 45 days, and makes midstream adjustments to fit the more
current financial picture. Lawmakers also may modify the expiring
budget, if need be, with so-called “caboose bills” that
take effect as soon as the governor signs them.
So
budgeting, either writing a new one or amending an old one, is a
nearly constant process. Each fall, the University submits its budget
priorities — developed through an extensive internal process
— to the state Office of Management and Budget. These include
requests for both operating needs and capital (building) projects,
the latter of which are enumerated in a six-year plan that is updated
every other year.
The
state budget office, working in concert with the governor, reviews
the state’s revenue projections and puts together a budget
proposal, which the governor usually unveils in December. At the
close of 2001, outgoing Gov. Jim Gilmore did the honors. Full
story.
New center to preserve heritage of
South Atlantic region’s culture
By Robert Brickhouse
U.Va.,
Virginia Tech, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities are
joining forces to establish a center that has the potential to preserve
the South Atlantic region’s colorful heritage while also promoting
tourism and economic development. The southeastern region-wide cultural
consortium will aim to engage hundreds of communities, universities,
schools, private organizations and governments in preserving and
celebrating local and regional identities and educating the public
about them. The presidents of the three institutions announced details
of the effort Feb. 26.
With
the same chain stores and fast-food outlets dotting the landscape,
the same Hollywood movies playing in every town, and the same national
television programs in every home, the South Atlantic Regional Humanities
Center (SARHC) aims to work to keep the historic and diverse southeastern
United States from losing its distinctiveness.
Supported
by the National Endowment for the Humanities and governed by a region-wide
advisory board, SARHC will serve Florida, Georgia, North Carolina,
Puerto Rico, South Carolina, the Virgin Islands and Virginia with
a wide range of programs that focus on the promotion of regional
history and the study of regional cultures, said Virginia Tech President
Charles W. Steger. “This collaboration between the Virginia
Foundation for the Humanities, the University of Virginia and Virginia
Tech will serve as a model for the rest of the region and the nation
as we pool resources to further the appreciation and knowledge of
the South Atlantic,” he said.
Full
story.
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