The House Budget

Setting the budget is likely the most important thing we do here in Richmond, as it determines how $175 billion of your tax dollars will be spent for the next two years.


A training facility for law enforcement, police recruitment and wellness programs, project ceasefire, and teacher retirement accounts are just a few of the items that were cut from the budget by House Democrats.


In the past budget cycle, we fully funded VRS with an additional $1B investment. This budget, cuts that fund by $350M. Additionally, the budget thwarts Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s $1 billion in additional tax relief and the proposed sales tax hike that he had planned for in his first two-year state budget.


The potential bright spots in this budget are attempts to push for more money to fund public education, pay increases for teachers and the expansion of mental health services.  

There Aren't Three Pieces in this Budget

You cannot spend yourself rich. Del. Barry Knight highlights the differences between how the budget was formed under Republican leadership, compared to this years approach.

Local Budget Highlights

I-81 Corridor Improvement: The House budget also prioritizes a total of $22.5 billion for transportation funding in Virginia. Language amendments provide a limited exception to the code to allow for projects in the I-81 Corridor Improvement Program to move forward with preliminary engineering and any right-of-way activities even if all the funding to complete the project is not in the 6-year improvement plan. These changes accelerate the timeline for projects in the Winchester area.


Higher Teacher Pay: The House budget seeks to implement a four-year plan to bring the Commonwealth’s teacher pay to beyond the national average by providing two pay increases at around 3% at the start of each fiscal year. In conjunction with legislation passed earlier this session, the plan is to meet this milestone by 2028.


Mental Health: The House appropriations committee recommended more than $457 million for mental health and substance abuse services. While many of the Governor’s proposed mental health priorities were altered in the House budget, Democrats did agree to Youngkin’s request to open up an additional 3,440 developmental disability waiver slots to address the priority one waitlist.  Some changes from the Governor’s proposed budget worth noting:

  • Cuts of $10 million for the development of comprehensive psychiatric programs

  • Cuts $1 million from a proposed cut youth mental health services database

  • Cuts $200,000 set aside to fund peer to peer mentoring

  • Cuts of $8 million for additional behavioral crisis services


The House and Senate budgets will go into conference in the coming days, with final negotiations planned on or before March 9th, when the General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn. As we continue through this process, I will continue to fight for priorities that benefit hard-working Virginia families and our local community.

On The Floor this Week: Minimum Wage & More Anti-Gun Legislation

SB1 passed the House this week, moving to raise Virginia's minimum wage to $13.50 an hour in 2025, before rising to $15 an hour in 2026. While that might work fine in Northern Virginia, it's a disaster for small businesses in places like Winchester and Bristol, where cheaper alternatives are in some cases just across the street. Virginia is one Commonwealth, but we don't have one economy. There are significant regional differences, and this legislation overlooks that.


We continued to hear bills that threatened our Second Amendment on the House floor this week. The “Ghost Guns” bill, age restrictions on “assault firearms,” a civil penalty for leaving a firearm in an unattended vehicle, and several other bills to punish law-abiding gun owners made their passage through both bodies on Wednesday.


For more information on bills I have supported or opposed, check out VPAP’s General Assembly guide: https://www.vpap.org/legislators/320125-bill-wiley/

House Dems: It's Too Expensive to Protect Kids from Fake Pills Laced w/ Fentanyl

House Democrats did not want to hear SB469, a bill dealing with increasing penalties for fentanyl dealers and disrupting production processes of this deadly drug. The bill passed the Senate 38-2, but once it crossed the aisle, it was deemed too expensive.

Celebrating 135 years of business with John & Patti Solenberger

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