(Richmond) — Virginia officially has a new budget.
In a special called session Monday, the Virginia General Assembly passed a compromise spending plan that was announced late last week by the Governor and House and Senate money committee leaders.
“While Virginians’ elected officials can sometimes be far apart on policy, today demonstrates and reiterates that we can come together to deliver for the Commonwealth,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a statement.
Most importantly, Henry County Delegate Eric Phillips says the two-year spending plan does not raise taxes. “We were able to do a lot of good things and meet spending priorities for the Commonwealth without raising taxes,” Phillips said.
The new budget also doesn’t include a Democrat-backed provision that would have had Virginia rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It also didn’t include the Governor’s proposed tax cuts or a corresponding hike in the sales tax.
“What you see in this budget is the dedication and collaboration from my colleagues in the House, Senate of Virginia, and the Governor. We came together to pass a budget that works for all families of the Commonwealth,” said Delegate Luke E. Torian, House Appropriations Committee Chair.
Danville Delegate Danny Marshall says the new spending plan also keeps borrowing in check. “There is some borrowing in the budget, but there’s also language that says if we exceed revenue we’ll have to first pay down the debt,” Marshall said. “So it may well be that we end up borrowing a lot less than anticipated.”
The agreement also scrapped a Democrat plan to charge sales tax on all digital goods, downloads and services.
“While the budget isn’t what a Republican House of Delegates would have produced, the document signed by the Governor today is a significant improvement over the budget sent to him at the end of the Regular session,” said House Republican leader Todd Gilbert.
Phillips says overall it’s a good spending plan with concessions from both sides of the aisle. “Any time you have seven-hundred pages of anything, you’re going to find things in there that you would not vote on as a stand-alone issue,” Phillips said. “But there are also a number of things in there that I would absolutely vote for. There’s always going to be give and take, it’s never going to be perfect.”
Locally, the budget includes a series of line items introduced by Southside lawmakers. Delegate Marshall got two million dollars included to help build a whitewater canal in front of the former White Mill. That’s being developed as “Dan River Falls.”
In addition to recreation, Marshall says it will also give the Danville Life Saving Crew a chance to get valuable training without leaving town. “They will be able to train for white water rescue in a controlled environment,” Marshall said. “They will be able to turn this on and off. If you have to train in the Dan River, you can’t exactly turn that off if something goes wrong.”
The two million dollars from the state will be added to local support from the City of Danville, and donations from the public. “It will draw a lot of visitors from out of town, for training and for fun,” Marshall added.
The budget also includes more than one-point-six million for salary adjustments and software purchasing for the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research.
Marshall also got a half-million approved for Southern Virginia Higher Education Center in South Boston to hire a full time nursing instructor. “They will teach students how to work in the health care industry,” Marshall said. “That’s a big issue here in Southside with a persistent nursing shortage.”
SCHEV will also use the state money to upgrade equipment in their Welding Lab.
The 24-26 state budget also restores funding to the New College Institute in Martinsville. The draft budget from the Governor last year included four-point-seven (m) million dollars in year one for NCI, but zero in year two.
Delegate Phillips got year two funding added to the package. “I think we’re all rooting for NCI, they’re working really hard to get the right programming mixture and they’ve got a lot of good people there doing good things at the moment,” Phillips said. “I think it was important for us to continue to fund it. And we really appreciated the Governor coming down and getting a first-hand look.”
Another local line item will help finish a major facelift at the Gretna Public Library. Southside State Senator Tammy Mulchi and Delegate Phillips got $160,000 for renovations at the Gretna Branch Library. This will be added to local funds to help pay for one-and-a-half million dollar project.