William C. Flook, The Examiner
2006-11-11 10:00:00.0
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Fairfax County -

Fairfax County’s chairman and the speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates traded written jabs over lost child-care funds this month, part of an ongoing feud sparked by the speaker’s assertion that the county is wealthy enough to pay for the program itself.

The debate is centered around a multi-million dollar shortfall in Fairfax County child-care funds, brought about by a change in federal policy, that had threatened to cut 1,900 county children from subsidized day care.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine apparently forestalled that cut when he pledged $3.3 million on Thursday to bridge the gap. That contribution, coupled with matching county funds, should keep all the children on the rolls, at least in the short term.

The announcement follows a failed attempt by the governor to pass budget amendments earlier this year that would have helped fund the program. Some members of the House of Delegates say the state shouldn’t be responsible for supplementing day-care funds for such a wealthy county.

Va. House Speaker William Howell, a Republican, told The Examiner last month Fairfax County was “probably one of the two or three richest counties in the country.”

“And the fact that they’re asking the citizens of the commonwealth...to subsidize day care does seem a little incongruous to us,” he said.

That statement sparked a political firestorm, led by Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald Connolly, a Democrat.

“The inference drawn from this apparent sentiment is that the state should be unsympathetic to any need of Fairfax County residents,” Connolly wrote in a letter published in the Fairfax County Times this week. “Under that line of reasoning, Fairfax County should receive no aid for education, public safety, health and welfare or any other function of government since the level of income of our residents...should preclude us from ever receiving any state assistance.”

Howell, in a letter dated Nov. 8, wrote that Fairfax County and the Kaine administration did not bring the issue to the General Assembly during the regular session, and ignored warnings of the potential federal funding loss “until the 11th hour.”

“The policy and budget decisions of the Virginia General Assembly are not made in a vacuum,” Howell wrote. “As stewards of the taxpayers’ monies, we must act in a fiscally responsible manner with limited taxpayer dollars — including not using one-time dollars for ongoing operations that are not sustainable.”

wflook@dcexaminer.com