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Jun 21

Together, we enacted historic tax cuts and made record investments in education and public safety. This has always been about the movement we created together. It’s the people who sent us all to Richmond who make this Virginia we love so great. governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/news-

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Enjoyed watching

@RadfordHoops

take on

@VCU_Hoops

last night! Both teams left it all out on the court. 🏀

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@VCUAthletics

11h

Thank you @GovernorVA for coming last night and getting a taste of 𝙍𝙖𝙢 𝙉𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣

The spirit of Virginia is alive. And in order for our great Commonwealth to accelerate we must work together. Virginians deserve leadership that works together, going faster to get more done. I hope that you can join me. God Bless You, and God Bless the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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There is so much work to do to make Virginia the best place to live, work, and raise a family – but we only get there by locking arms and working together.

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I want to ask you to join me over the next few months in the spirit of partnership. I fully understand General Assembly plays an equal role in crafting our budget, and I respect that.

On top of that, we are going to provide support for the victims of flooding. We will invest another $11 million in emergency funds for the Buchanan County flood victims.

I am proposing that we add $685 million to this budget for resiliency, the Chesapeake Bay, and our agricultural best management practices program.

And finally, I want to address the real need to accelerate conserving and preserving our beautiful Commonwealth and we must preserve them.

We will together launch an ongoing crusade against the horrors of fentanyl poisoning and opioid overdose.

I outlined Wednesday six pillars: same day care, relief of the burden on law enforcement, greater capacity, a focus on substance abuse, a stronger behavioral health workforce, and service innovations.

This is the first step in a three-year transformation toward a strong and stable health safety net. It’s part of a bold approach that will make major changes in the system.

Yesterday at Parham Doctor’s Hospital, I launched “Right Help, Right Now” an initiative that outlined a package of more than $230 million in new investments in behavioral health.

Our jails, emergency rooms and hospitals are filled with people in mental health or substance use crisis. Law enforcement is overwhelmed. Our teachers are burned out. Parents and families feel lost and alone. Too many Virginians are afraid.

The aftermath of the pandemic has illustrated many challenges. But none are greater than the behavioral health crisis we are experiencing across Virginia and across the nation.

We are so grateful for what these quiet heroes do for us every day, and I look forward to working with all of you to have their backs in this upcoming budget.

This isn’t political. It’s commonsense. We’ve got to fix this for the women and men who put themselves on the line for us every day.

We are including almost $16 million more in these budget amendments to address compression issues for state police, sheriff’s deputies, and others caused by those pay increases.

The budget I signed in June included over $400 million for law enforcement, including historic pay raises.

Prosecution has dropped significantly witnesses are less willing to come forward and it’s clear that Virginia’s blue line has gotten far too thin.

I launched Operation Bold Blue Line so we could dramatically accelerate our efforts to recruit and retain law enforcement.

And finally, in our “quiet heroes” package, we are going to state unequivocally once again that in Virginia – we back the blue.

We will pair this with a $10 million investment in Nursing Preceptors offering up to $5,000 per semester to veteran nurses who train the next generation of caring and skilled nurses. We are going to accelerate the rebuilding of the nursing pipeline so we can care for one another.

Nurses will EARN – serving at their current certification level – while they LEARN the skills necessary to get an advanced certification.

That’s why this budget includes $35 million for the Earn to Learn Accelerator, where we will bring together our nursing schools and healthcare providers to expand the number of clinicians and clinical settings providing training for nurses.

We all know we need nurses, especially those with advanced nursing credentials. Virginia hospitals have identified a shortage of more than 4,000 nurses at their facilities, and vacancy rates are estimated as high as forty percent across all health care.

For teachers, I am proposing a one percent retention bonus to be paid next August. I am also proposing a $50 million investment in what we call the “A+ Teacher Reward Program.” This locally driven program will provide $5,000 bonuses to teachers based on merit.

Combined, it’s a package of $175 million for bonuses, reward incentives, expanded career pathways, and recruitment for the people who serve our communities every day.

Teachers work every day to make the world around them better – along with nurses and our law enforcement officers. They are what we call our quiet heroes. One of the things I am most proud of in this budget is what we are doing for these quiet heroes.

A good teacher connecting with a student one-on-one can change a child’s life. I’ve certainly experienced that, with Ms. Betty Weaver in the fourth grade, and I know everyone in this room has been impacted by a teacher.

This money will increase the availability of mixed delivery slots to an additional 1,100 children. We must accelerate our efforts to bounce back from the damage done by closing our schools and lowering standards.

We are driving $20 million targeted to two of our biggest early childhood education deserts, in Petersburg and Hopewell and in far Southwest Virginia – Lee, Wise, and Scott Counties – both areas that saw significant pandemic-related learning loss.

We are also including $7 million more for math specialists at the schools who need the most help, targeting the bottom 10 percent of schools in math performance based on Spring SOLs.

I am proposing that we expand the use of reading specialists to 4th and 5th grade, a $17 million initiative that brings our biennial commitment on literacy recovery to more than $63 million dollars.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the learning loss brought on by systematic efforts over the last decade to lower standards.

We passed the largest K-12 budget in history that included 10 percent raises for teachers, $100 million for a bipartisan lab school initiative to create choice in the public school system, $1.25 billion in school construction support, and a big step in elementary school literacy.

This is not the only place where we are going to hit the accelerator.

With my proposed changes, all told Virginia will have made a $5.9 billion commitment in its economic future. $5 billion in tax relief, $500 million in sites, and over $100 million in talent.

These efforts, when paired with our broader workforce reorganization will accelerate our efforts to help Virginians, including younger Virginians, obtain the skills necessary for good paying jobs that come with the many opportunities we see in the future.

It will take a lot of work, but by the time I leave office, I want us to have a plan to graduate every single high school senior in the Commonwealth of Virginia with an industry ready credential.

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I am proposing over $60 million in additional investments in talent and workforce development. This includes over $11 million in regional accelerator projects in Hampton Roads, Southside, Central, and Southwest Virginia.