Virginia’s state budget has been approved, and legislation enacted. As expected, many bills were vetoed by our governor – but many also were passed reflecting bipartisan agreement on important issues. Nothing major has changed on the most divisive issues. For example, no action was taken on firmly establishing in state law the right to contraception. Similarly, nothing substantial was done to reduce the current high risk of gun-based violence, particularly in our schools. Such issues are sure to come up again, most likely with changes made only if the legislative majority and governor have greater shared perspectives. Both parties now praise this budget’s increases in funding for education, although vetoed were some bills that would have provided more school funding. Some will find it disingenuous that legislators may praise their role in providing school funding while not supporting many school funding bills. Obviously, everyone wants good schools and low taxes – but the reality is that tough choices between the two often need to be made.
Exploring a bit online, I found that Virginia ranks 25th in the nation for school funding while ranking 12th among the states in per capita personal income and 13th in GDP. Although these rankings change, they are useful in indicating that school funding has not been as much of a priority in Virginia as in other states. Folks – particularly legislators – need to question if our relatively low level of school funding is something good to continue. Not only do we need to ask our legislators if they favor good public education, we need to ask if they support it enough to provide funds to schools rather than to other uses – including tax reductions.
Speaking of education – Governor Youngkin’s last minute state budget vetoes totaling about $900 million will have important local impacts. Included in these vetoes was $30 million earmarked to expand the Virginia Tech-Carillion School of Medicine and Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. Most of us know (often from direct experience) that there is a shortage of physicians locally, which is also true nationally. Unfortunately, there are too few medical schools to provide the training needed by many well qualified candidates. Our current local medical school is quite small, and this expansion was intended to allow growth to about 200 students – roughly doubling enrolment.
Governor Youngkin’s made this $900 million budget cut in response to concern that tariffs and cuts to federal funding may result in “short term” difficulties to Virginia’s economy. This is an important decision and demonstrates that Federal policies are already adversely impacting us locally. Certainly, expanding medical education would be a good thing for our region, and is needed now.
