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For immediate release:  February 17, 2023
Contact:  Kevin Rogers, VEA Communications, krogers@veanea.org, 804-775-8316

VEA: Failure to Fund School Construction Needs ‘Shameful’

The following statement is from Dr. James J. Fedderman, President of the Virginia Education Association, on the fate of legislation earlier today that would have helped fund school construction and infrastructure improvements:

All students and school employees deserve a safe environment conducive to teaching and learning. So, it’s a shame that House Republicans once again, in subcommittee, killed the last remaining legislation in this session to create a pathway for paying for school infrastructure improvements (SB1287 and SB1408). As many of our schools deteriorate and teachers and school staff choose to leave these poor working and learning environments in droves, certain lawmakers chose inaction.

Both bills up today, like similar bills killed earlier this year and last, would have allowed localities to put to a voter referendum a proposed time-bound 1% sales tax to support construction and infrastructure updates in local schools. Nine localities in the state have been given permission to hold such referendums, and almost all of them voted overwhelmingly to do so. Yet, for a second year in a row, Republicans on the committee shut that option down for everyone else. Citizens, also for the second year in a row, drove to the Capitol from around the state, particularly from rural communities, to beg lawmakers to help their localities help themselves. Now, local communities will be forced to consider options like raising property taxes to pay for updates, or, more likely, continuing to live with poor learning environments.

Many of these same state lawmakers have been patting themselves on the back for a $1.25 billion investment in the state budget last year to tackle school construction needs. While this investment did represent a step in the right direction, especially considering that in the prior decade the state invested virtually nothing, we need to talk about the scale of our school infrastructure challenges. In 2021, the state calculated a $25 billion backlog in school infrastructure needs. In the 2013 state assessment, that number was $18 billion. That’s an $800+ million average growth each year. Knowing this, even $1.25 billion over two years almost certainly isn’t enough to keep up with the growing backlog. If state lawmakers, with over two years of record budget surplus, can’t provide enough funding to work down our state’s backlog, the burden will be shifted to localities. That burden, unfortunately, is even heavier for rural areas with far less capacity to raise local revenue and where very few new schools have been built over the past decade.

It’s shameful that House Republicans not only provided insufficient funding to modernize our crumbling schools, but now have the audacity to tie the hands of localities to raise the revenue themselves. The Virginia Senate included language in its budget that would allow localities to implement this sales tax referendum. There may even be a plurality of lawmakers in the House who agree this modest language adjustment should be included in the final state budget. We urge lawmakers to do so in order that all students and staff, regardless of their zip code, can be afforded the dignity of learning and working each day in a safe, respectable environment.

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The more than 40,000 members of the Virginia Education Association believe that every child deserves a great public school.

VEA on Twitter: @VEA4Kids