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Senate committee reviews member amendments to General Government budget; staff outlines personnel, project and pilot requests
Summary
Senate staff reviewed member amendments in the General Government budget area, highlighting requests including a $3.5 million Attorney General salary compression adjustment, a $2 million Sandy River Reservoir request, a $1 million electric utility regulation operating request, and an expansion of the Virginia VINE pilot to 20 localities.
Committee staff in the Senate of Virginia convened in Richmond to brief members on member-submitted amendments to the General Government portion of the introduced budget, saying the session would focus on reviewing those requests and noting the committee will fund any bill that passes the Senate and has a fiscal impact.
The presentation grouped amendments by agency and program. Staff identified personnel and compensation items — including a proposed $3.5 million salary compression adjustment for the Attorney General’s Office and requests to add positions in the solicitor general’s unit and a workers protection unit — and a pair of proposals to provide health benefits for a second legislative assistant and increases in legislator pay. A staff member said some amendments are tied to bills and that bill-related requests were listed at the end of the provided spreadsheet and display.
Staff highlighted several programmatic and project requests. The Department of General Services asked for $2,000,000 related to the Sandy River Reservoir project to address water supply issues for the town of Crewe and three large state facilities in Barkville. The Commission on Youth was listed for additional funding to fully fund a third position; the Crime Commission was listed for operational funding to support the Mary J. Burton review panel. Judicial-related requests included funding to livestream Court of Appeals proceedings and to modernize an appellate case management system the presenter described as "about 18 years old." Public defender offices were cited for added paralegals in line with a JLARC recommendation.
The staff presentation also described program expansions and technical systems: a Virginia VINE pilot to expand victim custody-notification hookups to 20 localities, continued opioid-funded support for a substance use disorder analytics platform, and State Corporation Commission work on the short-term loan database and related vendor issues. Staff flagged language linked to directing deposit revenues "as required by code" and a request from Senator Dietz to backfill losses from changes to enhanced premium tax credits.
No formal motions or votes were recorded during the broadcast. Staff said the committee would compile and publish a list of bills that pass the Senate and that have fiscal impacts; members raised no substantive questions during the briefing and the item concluded for the day.
The meeting was framed as an informational review of member requests for the General Government budget; next steps staff described were assembling the final bill list and moving forward with funding decisions for bills that ultimately pass the Senate.
