Greetings from your State Capitol.  My update this week will focus on the House Budget that we adopted last week.

The House budget includes the largest education allocation in Virginia history, a 15% increase over the previous budget.  Within this spending is the State’s share of a 4% raise for teachers this year and an additional 1% percent bonus in each year of the biennium.  It also establishes a $2 billion loan fund for school construction and renovation.  Further, it includes additional funding to hire new reading specialists, additional resource officers, and fully funds the latest Standards of Quality.

In Public Safety we increased funding for salaries for all levels of law enforcement to address the shortage of officers and to assist in retaining those already serving.  We also allocated $5million over the next two years to help address gun violence.

Further priorities include, an additional $10 million to improve nursing home care, $251 million more for Medicaid, an additional $1.7 billion for transportation over the next two years, a 4% raise for our State employees, and a significant increase in higher education funding to keep tuition costs down.

All of the above spending is accomplished while still providing major tax relief for all of our citizens.  With State revenues at an all-time high, largely because of Federal funds, we are proposing a doubling of the standard deduction on State income taxes, a rebate of $300 for every filer, a repeal of the grocery tax, and a one-year suspension of the recent 5 cents/gallon increase in the gas tax.

The Senate budget has some significant differences in spending and priorities.  The differences between the two will be resolved and a final budget adopted within the next two weeks.

This week the two bodies will have to finish work on all bills and resolve any differences by the end of next week.

I will give a detailed report on the status of my legislation in the next update.

As always, I welcome comments or questions.  Follow the process at virginiageneralassembly.gov.  You may email me at delborrock@ house.virginia.gov, or call at (804)698-1054.