Once again, WMRA's Tom Graham is responsible for Monday's blog post. He kept his eye on General Assembly doings all weekend, and sent me a note about them last evening that I thought you might like to read as well.
Hi Martha –Thought you might be interested in seeing some of the highlights of the compromise budget agreed to by House/Senate conferees in Virginia’s General Assembly.State officials have released a PowerPoint style overview of the agreementSome of our audience had been especially concerned about arts funding. They will want to note page 46 of this report.It shows a cut to the Commission on the Arts coming. But not the total elimination of funding that the House of Delegates had wanted.Under former Governor Tim Kaine’s proposals, the Arts Commission was budgeted for $8.8 million in state grants over the next two years. It now looks like, under the House/Senate compromise, the Commission will be getting about 15 per cent less than that.The House of Delegates had also pushed for complete elimination of grants to public broadcasting. Instead, the House/Senate compromise budget calls for a 15 per cent reduction in funding to public radio and television. The third year in a row, I believe, for that kind of reduction. Public broadcasting appears on page 11 of the overview report. [Note from General Manager Tom DuVal: The dollar amount indicated is closer to 28%. I'm trying to find out what the discrepancy is.]The above web-page also highlights funding changes to local education, Medicaid, constitutional officers and much more.But they are just highlights.If anyone wants to attempt the actual language of the budget changes, more detailed reports are available at:and --Should you decide to brave this world of lawmaker lexicon, may I suggest bringing plenty of caffeine along for the journey?Hugs,Tom G
BOB BROWN/TIMES-DISPATCH
Robert Vaughn, left, chief of staff for the House Appropriations committee, congratulates Del. Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford,
Then, this morning, Tom G, The Ever Vigilant One, sent this note. I thought, again, you might be interested.
Morning All --
Already had an exchange of emails on this last night, but I thought you might want to see this article from the Richmond Times Dispatch.
The final line of this newspaper story mentions the 15 per cent cuts to to public broadcasting and to the Commission on the Arts.
Best,Tom Graham isn't through yet for the day. He'll be hosting WMRA's Virginia Insight today at 3. The subject of the show is to be treating pain. (No irony intended, given the subject of this blog post.) Tune in! Call in! 888-967-2825, or 888-WMRA-TALK .
Tom G
0 comments:
Post a Comment