Three weeks after the House of Delegates adopted a new pair of state budgets, House Republican leaders want to know exactly when the Senate plans to act on its own spending plans so the two bodies can begin resolving their differences as the state nears the end of its fiscal year.
House Speaker Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, asked Senate Republican leaders on Tuesday for “a specific date at which we can expect the budget bills to be returned to the House for further consideration.”
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, and Senate Rules Chairman Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, Cox expressed concern about their decision to wait until Monday to refer the two budget bills to the Finance Committee and then begin deliberations on Tuesday, which will be four weeks after the House sent the bills to the other side of the Capitol to settle the impasse.
One of the budget bills is for the fiscal year that ends June 30. The other is for the next two fiscal years beginning July 1.
“The lack of clarity or urgency is obviously problematic on multiple levels,” Cox said in a two-page letter also signed by three House Republican leaders who didn’t support the House budget because it would expand Virginia’s Medicaid program.
The letter — signed by House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah; GOP Caucus Chairman Tim Hugo, R-Fairfax; and Majority Whip Nick Rush, R-Montgomery, in addition to Cox — said the unclear schedule prevents the House from knowing when to reconvene in special session to consider Senate budget amendments and create a conference committee to reconcile differences.
They also reminded Senate Republican leaders that the state is “quickly moving closer to the expiration of the current biennial budget” on June 30. “The General Assembly has a constitutional duty to produce a budget, but that requires both houses of the legislature,” they said. “The House of Delegates has acted. The Senate of Virginia has not.”
Norment, who also is co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, retorted, “Everyone needs to stop the ‘Chicken Little,’ acting as though the sky is falling. Virginia will have a timely budget well before June 30.”
In a formal response, Senate Republican leaders took aim at the House for adopting a budget that most Republican delegates opposed, as 19 Republicans joined the chamber’s 49 Democrats to support Medicaid expansion.
“We share your desire to complete a budget as expeditiously as possible,” Senate Republicans said in a letter to Cox. “The budget approved by the Senate during the regular session relied on the state’s existing revenue stream, had the support of our entire leadership team, represented the priorities of the majority caucus and secured a majority vote from our chamber.”
“Regrettably, the budget produced by the House only satisfied one of those four criteria.”
Norment released a general schedule on Friday for addressing the budget impasse, which he blamed on the House and Gov. Ralph Northam because of their insistence that the budget expand Medicaid with billions of dollars in enhanced federal funding and a new hospital tax to generate money for the state’s share of the cost.
The Senate refused to include Medicaid expansion or the hospital tax in its version of the budget during the regular session that ended on March 10, but Norment and other Senate Republicans did vote in favor of a provider assessment as part of an alternative proposal by Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, to expand some services under the current Medicaid program.
In two committee votes, Senate Finance Co-Chairman Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta, an advocate of Medicaid expansion, was the only Republican senator to vote against the hospital tax. Ultimately, the Senate dropped the provider assessment from the legislation, which died in the House Appropriations Committee because it didn’t include funding.
Norment said last week the Senate would meet Monday to refer the budget bills to Finance, which would meet immediately to hear an update on state revenues from Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne.
The schedule calls for the Finance Committee to work on its version of the budgets on Tuesday and possibly Wednesday, but does not say when the full Senate would convene to act on the committee’s amended budgets.
House Republican leaders said the Senate could have started the process on April 18, after the end of the reconvened session on gubernatorial vetoes and amendments.
“It appears there is no real desire to act,” House Appropriations Chairman Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, said Tuesday. “We could have had the bills in position for productive negotiations weeks ago.”
Separately on Tuesday, 21 local and regional chambers of commerce issued a joint letter supporting the expansion of Virginia’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act.
Those chambers are: ChamberRVA and chambers in Bristol, the Charlottesville area, Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia, the Roanoke area, Danville and Pittsylvania County, Franklin and Southampton County, the Fredericksburg area, the Richlands area, the Winchester area, Culpeper, Arlington County, Prince William County, Colonial Heights, Reston, Loudoun County, Wytheville and Wythe-Bland counties, Petersburg, South Hill, and Tazewell County.