As Virginia's budget outlook deteriorated a year ago, Gov. Timothy Kaine recommended closing most of two mental health facilities to save money. But shuttering the units and ejecting ill patients was too painful and politically difficult for lawmakers, who restored funding for the hospitals to keep them open. When Kaine, D, unveiled his budget Dec. 18, chock-full of deep cuts designed to close a $4.2 billion shortfall over two years, the mental health centers were back on the chopping block. Likewise, the outgoing governor recommended requiring 105,000 state employees to begin contributing 1 percent of their paychecks next year and 2 percent the following year to the state's retirement plan. Virginia, unusual among the states, has ponied up the costs of retirement savings for its employees since 1983. It is an expensive proposition, at about $540 million a year, but one that had been considered politically sensitive. This year, few were surprised to see Kaine propose the idea. It is a measure of the depth of the budget crisis facing Virginia that Kaine's spending plan is packed with items that a few years ago would have been unthinkable, controversial and likely to tie up the General Assembly for weeks. Hundreds of additional state employee layoffs, bringing the total put out of work in recent years to more than 1,600? A 17.5 percent cut for local sheriff's offices and 20 percent for police departments in a state that has long prided itself on law and order? Deep cuts for state colleges and universities as well as public schools? Kaine's proposal targets them all. 'All these issues that would have been life and death in previous years will become background noise this year as everyone competes to get attention,' said Neal Menkes, an analyst for the Virginia Municipal League, which is trying to sort out programs worth defending from the lost causes. 'It'll take a kind of bloody triage to figure out what you can really focus on to get through the noise.' A departing governor in Virginia has enormous freedom to take on the state's sacred cows, proposing a budget that will last for the next two years but must be steered through the legislature by his successor. In Kaine's case, tumbling tax revenue forced him to put forward a $30.5 billion spending plan, the first time in modern history a governor has proposed a smaller budget on his way out of office than he inherited at the start of his term. Gov.-elect Robert McDonnell, R, who takes office Jan. 16, has just a few weeks to come up with changes to Kaine's budget. So far he has said little about Kaine's proposals to cut except to say he believes that public safety has been hit too hard. He has been far more vocal about Kaine's proposal to eliminate the state's car tax and replace it with a 1 percent increase in the income tax rate. To remove the tax hike, McDonnell would have to find $950 million in further cuts to submit to the General Assembly for its consideration during the 60-day legislative session that begins Jan. 13. There, each budget item will find its usual champions and detractors. But the sheer number of budgetary fires means few issues will have the power to command the kind of concentration they might have in years when the state faced lesser fiscal challenges. 'The money's got to come from somewhere. That's what it comes down to,' said Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax. 'I'm sure there might be some fights. But you can't create something out of nothing.' The Virginia Education Association, for instance, has vowed to undo Kaine's cut for support staff in schools, a change the group estimates could cost 1,300 jobs. When Kaine suggested it last year, legislators balked. After hot debate, they eventually passed it as a one-year, one-time fix and one largely made up through federal stimulus dollars. Kaine has returned with the proposal again this year, and several lawmakers said that this time it will likely be adopted. Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol, successfully fought last year to restore funding for two units of the Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute in Marion. Kaine has again recommended closing the facility's geriatric and adolescent units as well as the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents in Staunton for a combined savings of $19 million. Wampler said he plans to make a stand for the facility again, but his efforts will compete against those of colleagues opposing proposals that are equally unpopular. The budget eliminates state funding for some local government finance staff, passing the costs to already-burdened municipalities. It slashes funding for public universities and colleges by 26 percent, even though higher education has taken huge hits in recent years and tuition increases are almost inevitable. It also raises the price of alcohol at state-run liquor stores by 2 percent. Last summer, Kaine proposed renting 1,000 prison beds to other states. The decision angered some sheriffs, especially those in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, who already house hundreds of prisoners for the state for a fraction of the actual cost to local governments. Virginia Beach's sheriff sued the state over the issue, and Kaine dropped the idea. But with this year's budget, Kaine is renewing the idea, proposing a contract to house 1,000 inmates from Pennsylvania. The deal could bring in $20 million in desperately needed revenue. 'Our options are fewer,' said House Majority Caucus Chairman Samuel 'Sam' Nixon, R-Chesterfield. 'Nothing can go untouched.' Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University, said that only now are legislators confronting the depth of the budget crisis and the number of difficult decisions they will be forced to make in coming weeks. 'Closing facilities, laying people off seemed like do or die' at one time,' he said. 'Not anymore.' 