Mark Warner Proposes Pay Increases for State Workers, Teachers

[JI7]

<RICHMOND, VA. - Gov. Mark R. Warner proposed pay raises Friday for state employees, teachers and college faculty and compressing the food tax reduction from three years into one for next year's budget.

The 3 percent pay raises, effective next fall, and trimming the sales tax on groceries from 4 percent to 2.5 percent by July were in amendments Warner presented to the Legislature's budget-writing committees for the final year of the current two-year budget.

Warner proposes $108 million for the pay raises and asks that the state forfeit almost $157 million in revenues through June 2007 in grocery tax cuts.

"We can do this because it meets our criteria as a one-time expense and it meets the goal of tax fairness I set out last year," Warner said of the food tax reduction in his address to the House Appropriations and Finance committees and the Senate Finance Committee.

The proposals were among the few initiatives Warner had not already outlined from a budget that seeks no increases in taxes or fees. It is the first budget he has presented in his three years in office drafted to accommodate an estimated surplus of about $1 billion rather than an anticipated budget shortfall, yet it contains no new programs or long-term spending initiatives. >

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=25&sid=365765

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Since the future of our entire country is in the hands of teachers

and it would be in our best interest to attract the best and the brightest....Teachers should be among the highest paid professionals in the country..

[Radical Activist]

2. Building favors with AFSCME, NEA

maybe?
I'm interested in finding out more about this guy since people talk about him running for President.