VEA Applauds House and Senate Budgets for Strengthening Investment in Virginia’s Public Schools
February 2, 2025
February 2, 2025
Richmond, VA – Earlier today, the Virginia House and Senate released their respective two-year state budget proposals as alternatives to what Governor Youngkin proposed in December 2024. After carefully reviewing both plans, it is clear that these proposals represent a significant step forward for Virginia’s students, educators, and families—especially when compared with the Governor’s earlier budget, which fell short of the mark. Overall, the House and Senate proposed more than $400 million in additional direct aid increases for K-12 schools. This includes funding for big-ticket items, including fully lifting the support cap (a VEA goal for more than 15 years!), creating a new state add-on for special education students, and providing the state share of $1,000 bonuses for school staff (see below for more details on each item.)
It is important to note that while the state has a significant surplus of over $2.5 billion in discretionary funding this year, the majority of those funds are non-recurring—that is, one-time in nature. Consequently, both chambers opted to limit large, ongoing investments in their budget proposals and instead focused on one-time expenditures.
In response to today’s release of the Senate and House budget proposals, Carol Bauer, president of the Virginia Education Association, said:
“Both the House and the Senate have demonstrated a clear commitment to public education by allocating more than $400 million above what the Governor proposed in direct aid. The VEA applauds lawmakers for finally lifting the harmful support cap, which was imposed more than 15 years ago and limited state funding for critical school support staff. We also commend them for taking a key step toward more adequate funding for our special education students through a new state add-on.
Over the coming weeks, we urge legislators to unite around the strongest features of each chamber’s budget so they can deliver a significantly improved, pro-education budget to the Governor—one that truly meets the needs of our students and staff.”
Both chambers propose redirecting the Governor’s planned car tax rebates (totaling $1.1 billion) toward a trio of tax changes that will benefit more Virginians. These include providing one-time income tax rebates of $200 for single filers and $400 for joint filers ($978 million), reducing tax liabilities by increasing the standard deduction amounts to $8,750/$17,500 ($79 million), and raising the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to 20% of the federal level ($35 million). The state EITC is a proven anti-poverty program closely linked to improved student achievement, and both VEA and NEA have consistently supported enhancements to this credit.
Most importantly for tax policy, the two chambers decided against making the elevated standard deduction amounts permanent, opting instead to extend their sunset date by two years. While an elevated standard deduction can be part of a progressive tax code, there are looming federal threats to education and Medicaid funding that could significantly impact Virginia’s budget in the coming years. As a result, it’s crucial to keep all revenue adjustment options on the table in case worst-case scenarios occur.
Below are some of the most significant K-12 changes proposed in the chamber budgets.
Bonuses Leave Salaries Below Pre-Pandemic Levels and Far Below National Average
Virginia’s teacher salaries remain the third least competitive in the nation. Instead of salary increases, both chambers have proposed funding the state share of one-time $1,000 bonuses for SOQ-funded instructional and support staff, with no local match required. School divisions will determine how to distribute these funds, and they are not required to provide equal amounts to each employee. Unlike most K-12 funding allocations, which are distributed based on a needs-based formula, this funding is flat, meaning high-wealth and high-poverty divisions will receive the same amount per employee.
While school staff will certainly benefit from this one-time payment, it is critical to acknowledge that average educator and support staff salaries in Virginia have lost thousands of dollars in value due to inflation since the pandemic. Without sustained salary increases, schools will likely continue to face unprecedented staffing shortages in the coming years. Virginia schools are still set to receive the state share of a 3% salary increase for school employees in the next school year.
Both chambers proposed fully lifting the support cap next school year at a cost of $223 million a year. The support cap was implemented in 2009 in the wake of a budget deficit driven by the Great Recession. The cap dramatically reduced funding for critical support staff positions in schools, such as instructional aides, cafeteria workers, custodial, and much more. An entire generation of Virginia students have gone through their K-12 experience with inadequate levels of support staff in their schools. The General Assembly has been incrementally lifting the support cap in recent years, restoring (with this last $223 million) nearly a billion dollars in funding to divisions since 2021. The educators and staff of the VEA have never stopped fighting to remove the support cap and we thank the many advocates from other organizations and associations who have stood by us over the years in demanding the removal of this arbitrary and deeply harmful cap.
In 2023, a landmark internal state report revealed that Virginia was underfunding public school students by billions of dollars compared to other states. Since then, education champions in the General Assembly have worked to address these shortfalls, including today’s budget proposals, which fully lift the support cap. One of the most glaring funding gaps identified in the report was for special education students, who are underfunded by an estimated $500 million annually.
As an initial step toward addressing this issue, the House and Senate budgets include $53 million per year for a special education add-on. This funding marks an important milestone, as it creates a dedicated mechanism that will be built upon in future budgets to ensure more adequate special education funding in the years ahead.
Both the House and Senate budgets remove the $50 million the Governor allocated for private and religious school vouchers. These types of programs have been shown to harm student outcomes for those who participate while also diverting critical resources away from public schools.
Additionally, both chambers eliminate $25 million in Lab School funding earmarked for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)—funding that these institutions did not request and largely showed no interest in applying for when a previous $100 million state grant for the same purpose was available. Instead, the House and Senate redirect these funds toward more impactful programming and student support at HBCUs, ensuring the money is used in ways that better align with their needs and priorities.
Each chamber will formally adopt its respective budget this week, after which the two versions will go to a conference committee made up of representatives from both bodies, who will work to develop a compromise budget.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, teachers in Virginia earn 67 cents on the dollar compared to other (non-teacher) college-educated workers. Virginia’s teacher wage penalty is the worst in the nation.
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