The Cavalier daily :: Tuesday, February 6, 1973 :: University of Virginia Library

The state House
Appropriations Committee late
Sunday afternoon reduced
Gov. Linwood Holton's
recommendation of $30.4
million for quality education
to $24.7 million, according to
the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The committee also added
about $600,000 to the $13
million recommended by Mr.
Holton for raising wages of
about 500,000 state
employees.

Primary Affect

The committee's reduction
of the appropriation for
quality education will
primarily affect the public
school system with little or no
effect on higher education.

The average daily
membership per pupil was
reduced from $640 to $628.
This figure will be established
as the foundation cost of the
quality standards.

$6.5 Million Reduction

Another change made by
the committee was a $6.5
million reduction of funds
designated for the localities for
education.

Appropriations Chairman
W. Roy Smith (D-Petersburg)
said the committee figured the
revised school proposals would
meet the mandated standards
of high quality with a modified
version of the plan of a study
task force which was the basis
of Holton's recommendation.

The proposed school
appropriations was only one of
several major items reduced by
the committee in their
reduction of Mr. Holton's $102
million "mini-budget" bill.

Avoid Commitment

By reducing the bill $30
million the committee tried to
avoid committing the state to
spend all of the state's 1972-74
budget biennium. Mr. Smith
estimated that the committee's
version of the bill would
appropriate about $72 million
of the new available funds and
juggle about $10 million in
general fund appropriations
made by the 1972 Assembly.

The salary adjustments
would allow some groups of
underpaid employees to receive
salary upgradings of at least a
one-step increase of about five
per cent in their classification.

Recommendations Approved

Many of Mr. Holton's
recommendations were
approved and in addition to
the salary adjustments,
appropriations in the fields of
mental health, corrections,
health and welfare were
increased.

The committee preserved a
$2.2 million item to renovate
existing mental hospitals to
make them meet safety code
standards. A Southeast Virginia
Training School also received
supplementary funds.

Capital Outlays

General fund cutbacks were
achieved in several capital
outlay items. A reduction was
made in the funds appropriated
for a maximum-security penal
institution. The committee also
reduced an item planning a
medium-security institution.

The construction fund for a
training school for mentally
retarded children was reduced
with the belief that little of
this appropriation could
actually be spent before the
1974 legislature session.