VIRGINIA – The budget battle in Virginia continues as some are pleased with the governor’s proposed amendments, while others are concerned about how it will impact education.
The $64 billion budget makes no changes to taxes and gives teachers three percent pay raises each year.
“This $21.3 billion education budget is a record amount of spending,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said. “It’s $1.3 billion more than the last biennium.”
Virginia Education Association Policy Analyst Chad Stewart said the group is pleased to see pay raises but has concerns about funding in other areas, which are less than what the general assembly initially proposed.
“We are really disappointed to see major cuts across the board to education,” Stewart said. “Overall, we saw more than $600 million in state direct aid cuts to our K-12 schools.”
The governor said $196 million in funding is planned for at-risk students. The education association said that isn’t enough.
“The general assembly focused on funding for students that faced the most barriers to education,” Stewart said. “He stripped out a lot of that funding and priorities for high-need communities.”
Youngkin disagrees, calling it a substantial increase in funding. He also said changes to the school funding formula played a role in creating the budget.
“Our proposals acknowledge the need for increased spending, but also want to wait and see the results of this very important work to make sure that as we change the way that we fund schools in Virginia to a more student-centric model that those ratio changes of course reflect the benefit of that great work,” Youngkin said.
Lawmakers will come together next week to consider Youngkin’s proposed amendments.