The Commonwealth Institute Analysis Finds MAJOR Differences Between Youngkin’s and the VA Senate Dems’ Proposed Changes to the 2022-2024 Budget

Great stuff as always from The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, “Comparing the governor’s and money committees’ proposed changes to the 2022-2024 budget.” As you can see, there are MAJOR differences between the Youngkin budget amendments and the House GOP budget amendments on the one hand, and the Senate Dems’ budget amendments on the other hand. The biggest differences include:

• Youngkin’s and the VA House GOP’s budget amendments slash taxes for corporations and (mostly) wealthy Virginian, while the Senate Dems’ budget does no such thing
• Instead, Senate Dems pour money into education, with an additional $1 billion of direct aid for school divisions, $117 million for 2% teacher salary increases, $140 million for teacher retention bonuses, $57 million for additional mental and physical health staff, $24 million for additional English language instructors, $39 million for assistants at trouble schools, $271 million for eliminating the cap on funding for support staff, etc.
• In contrast, Youngkin’s budget amendments do not include a 2% teacher salary increase or any money for additional English language instructors or additional mental/physical health staff or assistants at trouble schools, and have much-smaller teacher retention bonuses, but do include $50 million to provide bonuses to “top-performing teachers.”
• On “lab schools,” the Senate Dems’ budget reallocates $95 million from that to funding school divisions, while Youngkin provides an EXTRA $50 million for “lab schools.”
• The Senate Dems’ budget amendments increase reimbursement for Medicaid providers/services by $210 million, compared to just $43 million in Youngkin’s budget amendments.

There’s a lot more detail in the TCI report, so definitely check it out, but those bullet items give a flavor of why the VA Senate Dems’ budget amendments are so much better than Youngkin’s or the VA House Republicans…

“As promised, upon the release of proposed budget amendments by the money committees, TCI has analyzed each for key changes and important information that would impact the commonwealth.

We’ve since produced our easy-to-read comparison of the two proposals alongside that of the introduced budget — you can find it here on our website. (There you will also find our summary of the governor’s budget proposed in December.)”