With Tight Schedule, Virginia Budget Compromise May Not Be Ready for Weekend Vote, Which Would Force General Assembly Session Extension

Legislators are meeting in behind-the-scenes meetings to try to finalize a budget compromise before the General Assembly is set to adjourn on Saturday, but they are divided by a House of Delegates desire for substantial tax cuts and a Senate desire for higher state employee salaries plus a desire to preserve more future tax revenues. House Appropriations Chair Barry Knight (R-Virginia Beach) said that negotiations may take too long to have a compromise ready for a weekend vote, although he emphasized that his Senate counterparts including Finance Chair Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) are cooperating in good faith.

“I think with the time constraints that we have, with the two bodies doing our business, I’m not sure we’re going to make it,” Knight told reporters on Tuesday.

The conference committee must have the compromise completed by Wednesday evening in order to have a Saturday vote since the legislature is governed by a rule requiring that the budget must be completed 48 hours before a vote to allow legislators to study the lengthy bill. That rule could be overridden with a super-majority vote, but Knight said it’s likely that the General Assembly will have to meet next week to vote on the budget bills.

One of the top problems for the handful of legislators who are working to craft the compromise is Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposal to double the standard tax deduction, incorporated into the House budget, but not into the Senate budget, leading to a big difference in the amount of revenue available for spending.

“We’re talking close to $2.1 billion on the double standard deduction, compared to their zero on that,” Knight said.

State Senator Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta) is one of the senators in the budget negotiations. He’s taken a more moderate approach than some of the other Senate Republicans and says that Virginia’s surpluses right now are due in large part to one-time income. As a result, he wants the priority to be on one-time expenditures with studies to look at the potential impact of long-term reduced revenue from tax cuts, especially during hard times…. (Excerpt from the Virginia Star)