A Senate leader offered a compromise on Thursday to separate the long-stalled budget from a pitched political battle over expanding health care coverage for hundreds of thousands of uninsured Virginians.
Also Thursday, leaders of the Senate Finance Committee met informally to plan action on the budget to ensure that the state can tap the rainy day fund for up to $675 million to offset half of the expected revenue shortfall through the biennium.
They also began to review potential spending cuts — including all non-mandated new expenditures in the currently proposed budget — and scheduled a meeting June 9 to move a revised budget to the full committee and Senate.
“We’re trying to make sure we have the rainy day fund available to us and, to do that, ensure that we move forward to complete the budget on time,” Senate Finance Co-Chairman Walter A. Stosch, R-Henrico, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in an interview after the 75-minute meeting.
The key to ending the three-month budget stalemate could be the compromise proposed by Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr., R-Augusta. The Senate would act on the House budget proposal and move separately to expand health insurance coverage subject to review by a legislative commission established last year.
