The House of Delegates approved a state budget Thursday that keeps taxes level, offers state funds for a teacher pay raise and restores most cuts made last year to public colleges and universities including the College of William & Mary.
The budget provides money for the state share of a 1.5 percent pay raise for teachers across Virginia, though local school divisions will have to match funds to receive the state cash.
While Williamsburg-James City County Schools Superintendent Steve Constantino has not released his proposed budget, York County School Division Superintendent Victor Shandor seeks a pay raise for teachers in his proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
The approved budget heads to Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who will review the budget in the coming days. He can add amendments to the budget, veto the entire document or specific items in it before sending it back to the General Assembly for final approval.
College faculty and all state employees would receive a 2 percent across-the-board pay raise under the budget plan. Funding to William & Mary cut last year due to budget shortfalls is mostly restored under the plan. The college is currently slated to lose about $4.6 million in state funding in the next two years, but the plan calls for 94 percent of the slashed funds to be returned.
“This budget demonstrates our clear commitment to making sure Virginia’s colleges and universities remain the world-class institutions that they are, and to make sure that they are affordable and accessible,” House Majority Leader Kirk Cox (R-66) said in a news release.
Like last year’s budget, this budget does not include an expansion of Medicaid as prescribed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. The issue was a sticking point between McAuliffe and House Republicans in 2014, causing passage of the state budget to be delayed into June. The disagreement nearly caused a shutdown of the state government before a budget was passed later that month.
By December, the General Assembly and McAuliffe had learned of a $2.4 billion budget shortfall due to revenues coming in at less than what was projected. Several cuts were made to the budget to address the shortfall, including those that affected William & Mary.
“Virginians should be proud of the manner in which their leaders worked together across branches of government and party lines to pass a balanced budget that invests in a key priorities for a new Virginia economy,” McAuliffe said in a Thursday news release.
The plan also identifies $105.4 million for mental health services and $27.7 million for healthcare safety net programs over the next two years. An additional $96.5 million will go toward Medicaid physical and behavioral health services for low-income adults.
The budget nixes a series of fees proposed by McAuliffe, including a restaurant inspection fee, a weights and measures fee and a saltwater license fee. It sends $27 million of funding to the Governor’s Opportunity Fund, which the governor’s office awards in grants to localities to help lure businesses to the state.
