BUDGET CUTS TO HIT EDUCATION AND MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMS
Coronavirus’ economic impact takes shape as schools and colleges alone take $145M hit
Hampton Roads will see a more than $145 million coronavirus economic hit just from state budget cuts to the area’s schools and colleges, a Daily Press review of state budget amendments passed Wednesday suggests.
The cuts eliminated funds for the state’s share of 2% pay increases for teachers next year and the year after as well as increased funding for college financial aid.
Those cuts total $32 million from the state funds promised in March to Peninsula and surrounding county school budgets over the next two years. They total $60 million in south Hampton Roads over the next two years. State aid to most districts is still slightly above this year’s level.
The amendments also cut $53 million of proposed increases for
the area’s four state universities.
The economic cost of coronavirus-sparked state budget cutbacks will go beyond the the impact on schools and colleges.
In addition to those reductions, the budget cuts a $3 million a year eviction prevention program that was largely to be aimed at Newport News, Hampton, Chesapeake and Norfolk.
It also cuts $1.8 million the General Assembly had proposed to grant the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and $1.1 million for fisheries and aquatic disease research at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
As has been the state practice in years past when recession looms, the budget amendments carve out funding for community mental health services — a total of $146 million over the next two years. Virginia’s badly underfunded community mental health agencies were counting on that money to make sure that such basic services as crisis response, outpatient treatment and veterans’ mental health care were available statewide.
For several thousand state employees in the region, the budget amendments will mean no 3% bonus next year or 3% pay increase the year after.
Students at the area’s community colleges will miss their chance for a portion of some $86.5 million the General Assembly had set over the next two years for a new statewide financial aid package.
The budget cuts $23 million a year proposed to boost affordable housing efforts statewide, $16 million year to expand broadband access in rural counties and $34 million over two years for dental care for adult Medicaid recipients.
It also does away with a planned $300 million addition to the state’s financial reserves, a top priority that Gov. Ralph Northam and General Assembly budget-writers shared.
The cuts to schools will hit Gloucester county particularly hard — the $1.5 million reduction brings state aid both next year and the year after that below this year’s levels.
Other districts will see some increases from current levels — but some, like Hampton and Newport News will lose a third of the jump they had been promised for next year, while Norfolk will lose more than 40% of its 2021 increase. All three will lose all of the 2022 increase they were originally to get — and more.