Local Income Tax Pushed; N.Va. Delegates Try to Sell School Financing Option
Northern Virginia Republicans in the House of Delegates rallied support today for a local income tax to fund school construction in their region, an option they view as a prime source of money now that the House speaker is poised to kill a Senate bill for statewide education assistance.</br></br>With House Speaker S. Vance Wilkins Jr. (R-Amherst) planning the demise of the statewide bill on Monday, GOP delegates from Northern Virginia scrambled to line up support for a replacement bill for education improvements back home -- and to fund them through a new income tax that would require the approval of local county boards.</br></br>"I'm working my darnedest to see what I can do," said Del. Jeannemarie A. Devolites (Fairfax), who was taking the lead role of rounding up votes for the income tax measure. "This is the better way to go: It would keep every dollar raised at home."</br></br>After winning Wilkins's permission in a 9 a.m. meeting, Devolites and other suburban Republicans spent the day trying out the income tax concept on colleagues. Devolites, one of Wilkins's lieutenants on the House floor, said the reception was "mixed." Some rural Republicans complained that without the Senate bill, school systems in their districts stood to win no new money at all.</br></br>Wilkins and Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) have been sparring for several days over Senate Bill 170, sponsored by Democrat Charles J. Colgan of Prince William County, which would place two issues affecting Northern Virginia on the Nov. 5 election ballot. One would be a statewide referendum to raise the state's 4.5 percent sales tax by a half-cent to fund education programs; the other, for Northern Virginia only, would raise the sales tax locally by the same amount and earmark the proceeds for regional transportation projects.