The legislature approved new spending

Earlier this week (8-10-21), the legislature wrapped up our special session.

Here are a few highlights in the American Rescue Plan budget bill in Virginia:

• $700 million to build “last-mile” broadband and close Virgina’s digital divide over the next three years;
• $862 million for Virginia’s Unemployment Trust Fund which was depleted. Without our action, it would have been forced to assess major unemployment insurance premium increases on small businesses’
• $73.6 million to upgrade the Virginia Employment Commission’s systems to improve responses to unemployment claims;
• $250 million for school heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades if localities match those funds, localities that are traditionally charged with funding 100% of school construction costs in Virginia.
• $411 million for wastewater treatment infrastructure, including $125 million for the Alexandria, Richmond and Lynchburg combined sewers which currently dump billions of gallons of untreated sewage into the Potomac and James Rivers.
• $25 million for the Virginia state park maintenance backlog. I had hoped to address a statewide $275 million backlog so we can complete work at Stafford County’s Widewater State Park. I will continue to press for this in the Governor’s next budget.
• $111 million in financial aid for low-income Virginia college students;
• An historic $250 million investment in our stressed mental health system;
• $120 million for consumer utility assistance;
• New funds for supportive housing, substance abuse treatment and community crisis systems;
• $5,000 bonuses for all Virginia State Police (VSP) and state Capitol Police officers and $3,000 bonuses for deputy sheriffs and correctional officers around the state. We also funded bonuses to alleviate salary compression in the VSP and $5,000 recruitment bonuses with $2,000 recruitment relocation grants.
• $3 million to improve access to early voting;
• $4 million for gun violence prevention programs;
• We also retained $1.1 billion of ARPA funds to appropriate in 2022 contingent upon Delta variant progress.
• We also directed the Department of Motor Vehicles to open for in-person service within 30 days.

Many of these accomplishments were not easy. We were only able to get all this done because of our Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate along with the Governor and Lieutenant Governor.