Dear Friend,
The 2024 Legislative Session has adjourned, sine die. Below is an update on the final week of legislative work, bills communicated to the Governor, the General Assembly’s budget, and what lies ahead.
The Final Week of the 2024 Legislative Session
On Saturday, March 9, the 2024 Legislative Session adjourned Sine Die, concluding the work of the General Assembly. The legislature considered 3,594 pieces of legislation this Session, including bills, constitutional amendments, commending and memorial resolutions, and resolutions requesting studies. In terms of bills, The House passed 656 House Bills of the 1,547 its membership introduced. The Senate passed 390 Senate Bills of the 737 its membership introduced. These bills head to the Governor for his review; he has 30 days to take action on legislation. The General Assembly will meet for a reconvene session on April 17 to receive and respond to the Governor’s actions.
You may enjoy this article highlighting why this Legislative Session was important as well as this article recounting this Session and capturing the sentiments of members on the last day of Session. Finally, the Virginia Public Access Project has created this graphic of the fate of 2024 legislation.
Seven Day Bills
In accordance with the Constitution, the Governor is subject to a seven day deadline for bills that are communicated to him before the last week of Session. This year, 84 bills met that criteria. Of these bills, 64 were signed into law, including my HB1113, which increases limits on Job Order Contracting, an alternative form of procurement useful for localities performing maintenance and small renovations. Additionally, bills were signed into law that will prohibit legacy admissions at state colleges and universities; ensure marriage licenses are not denied issuance on the basis of sex, gender, or race of the parties; as well as many other provisions. A full list of bills signed into law can be found here.
Additionally, 12 bills were amended including changes to Virginia Beach’s Charter, health insurance coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices, as well as several other provisions. A full list of amended bills can be found here.
Finally, 8 bills were vetoed. These include a bill to ensure that policies pertaining to parental notification of sexually explicit content should not be construed as permission to censor books in public schools; a bill to facilitate firearm transfers from those under a protective order or convicted of a misdemeanor; as well as a bill to direct Virginia’s re-entrance into the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). You can find a list of vetoed bills here and the Governor’s veto statements here.
The General Assembly can take action on recommendations and vetoes placed on seven day bills either during the Legislative Session, or they can decide to delay action until the Reconvene Session when the rest of the Governor’s recommendations and vetoes will be received. The General Assembly has decided to delay their actions until the April 17, Reconvene Session.
The Budget Bill
The House & Senate Budget Conferees completed their work this past week and a conference report on the budget bills was finalized. The agreed budget provisions can be found here. This represents a tremendous amount of input, consideration, work, and compromise made to arrive at a budget that makes crucial investments while advancing Virginia forward prudently amid forecasts of pending economic recessions and a sharp reduction in federal funding. Additionally, this budget underlines previous legislative actions that have been repealed, sidelined, or uninitiated by the current administration and previous House majority. These include Virginia’s participation in the Regional Green Gas Initiative (RGGI), removing language that prevented the full implementation of the Earned Sentence Credit, as well as removing the significant delay placed on my 2020 legislation that initiated a gradual ban on polystyrene food service containers. Finally, another point of interest was the budget proposal to establish a Virginia Sports & Entertainment Authority for the purpose of issuing nearly $2 Billion in bonds for the Potomac Yard Arena project, along with accompanying mechanisms for oversight and control over the project. This proposal was in the House budget but was excluded in the final budget. You can read more about the development of this issue in this article from The Virginia Mercury.
You can watch the final deliberation and vote on the General Assembly’s budget at this link. You can also read about the final budget proposal in this article from The Richmond Times-Dispatch, this more general article from The Richmond Times-Dispatch, as well as in this write-up from The Virginia Mercury.
While the budget is hundreds of pages long and contains countless lines of appropriations and controlling language, I do want to highlight some signifcant changes the General Assembly’s budget made to the Governor’s proposed budget. While this is certainly not a comprehensive analysis, below is a selection of the General Assembly’s budget provisions.
Higher Education:
Provides an increased funding of $205.4M over the biennium to increase access and mitigate tuition increases.
Includes a $55M increase over the biennium to support financial aid and operating costs for the Virginia Community College System.
Grants an additional $79.5M to support financial aid initiatives.
Includes final needed funds to complete the merger of Old Dominion University and Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Health:
Retains the landmark investment the Governor made by fully funding all priority one developmental disability waiver slots, but acknowledges that funding all slots must also include support to the provider network to ensure there is capacity. As such, this budget includes a 3% rate increase for DD services each year over the biennium and a quarterly phase-in of slots to control the uptake.
Fully funds $745.2M over the biennium for the medicaid and children’s health insurance forecasts.
Allots $150M in FY2025 as contingency funds to reflect higher rates of medicaid enrollment than previously forecasted.
Adds $40M over the biennium to support a value-based purchasing program which incentivizes higher staffing levels at nursing homes.
Includes $11.3M over the biennium to increase medicaid dental rates by 3%.
Provides $27.6M over the biennium to continue developing behavioral health crisis infrastructure.
Adds $6.2M over the biennium to fund community health workers in local health departments.
Includes $5.5M over the biennium for Child Advocacy Centers.
K-12 Public Education:
Overall includes $1.2B more than the introduced budget.
Provides $243.1M over the biennium to continue the hold harmless provided by the State as a result of the elimination of the grocery sales tax.
Provides $539.1M over the biennium to account for the state’s share of a 3% salary increase each year for teachers and support staff.
Adds $116.7M to the Governor’s introduced budget for a total of $527.8M over the biennium to support early childhood care and education programs.
Includes $371.3M over the biennium to implement recommendations from the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission’s (JLARC) study on K-12 funding in Virginia.
Commerce:
Provides $175M for the Virginia Housing Trust Fund to create and preserve affordable housing.
Includes $114M to support life science research initiatives at UVA, VT, VCU, and ODU, which supports creating a rival to North Carolina’s Research Triangle.
Includes $79.5M over the biennium to support increasing the state’s minimum wage to $13.50 in 2025 and $15 in 2026.
State Employees:
Includes $178.8M in FY2025 and $366.4M in FY2026 for a 3% salary increase each year.
Transportation:
Provides $65M in FY2025 and $84.5M in FY2026 for additional operating assistance for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, includes $25,000 for a joint subcommittee to explore long term cost-containment strategies.
While this is certainly not a comprehensive list of the budget’s provisions, I hope it provides more insight. You can find the complete conference report here. If you have questions regarding portions of the state’s budget, or are curious about a particular issue, please do not hesitate to contact me at delegate.carr@betsycarr.org or by phone at 804-698-1078.
Other Legislative Action
The final week of Session often sees long, start-stop floor sessions as the House and Senate work on committees of conference, which are small working groups of Delegates and Senators who work to resolve competing policy proposals to establish a consensus report to be considered for a vote. This year, 65 House Bills were sent to conferences.
The final conference reports included bills streamlining and expanding the calculations used for earned sentence credits; requiring firearm purchasers to also purchase or prove ownership of a firearm locking device if they reside in the same household as a minor; requiring labeling for sale of invasive plant species; excluding of small bus shelters from the uniform statewide building code, a necessary move to streamline and promote the construction of bus shelters. Additionally, there were were conference reports on multiple bills to mitigate the sale of nicotine vapor products to minors and the promulgation of the illicit imported vape market; as well as many, many other proposals. You can find a full list of conference reports that have been agreed to at this link.
In addition to the long agendas and substantial work on the House Floor, members rose for points of personal privilege to highlight or discuss matters of importance to them, their district, their communities, and the Commonwealth. Last week included several notable points of personal privilege including:
Delegate Sam Rasoul rose to speak to the start of Ramadan and its spiritual significance. You can watch his floor speech here.
Delegate Karrie Delaney rose to highlight women in aviation. You can watch her floor speech here.
Delegate Phil Hernandez rose earlier in the week to speak to his personal connection to the hearing impaired community and underlined the need and ways we can support the deaf and hard of hearing community. You can watch his point of personal privilege here.
My Introduced Legislation
I passed 17 bills this legislative session, one, mentioned above, having already been signed by the Governor. The bills I’ve passed are below.
HB1071: Clarifies expanding authority of any locality to reduce their speed limit to as low as 15mph.
HB1073: Prohibits towing operators who are not subject to contracts (including price caps) with a locality from approaching the driver of a wrecked or disabled vehicle if law enforcement is on scene. This preserves the contracted price and services that law enforcement requested tows are subject to and that non-contracted towers currently shirk.
HB1080: Is an efficiency bill that eliminates instances when drivers have their licenses suspended despite the underlying case having been purged by the courts (which often happens 10 years after the offense), leaving defendants in a grey-area with an ambiguous path forward.
HB1082: Authorizes the court to order a restricted license to a judgement debtor who's license was suspended for failure to pay. This bill recognizes the need to drive as a means to employment so the underlying judgement can be paid.
HB1084: Allows temporary disabled parking placards to be issued for 12 months (as opposed to the current limit of 6 months). It also eliminates a nominal fee currently associated with extending temporary disabled parking placards.
HB1088: Directs the Board of Education to develop model policies and instructional materials on environmental literacy and climate change for adoption by local school districts.
HB1100: Makes available statewide an optional ordinance currently only offered in Planning District 8 (Northern Virginia). This ordinance requires the conservation of trees during the land development process.
HB1108: Is a broad consensus bill providing increased transparency and competition for public procurement projects utilizing construction management and design-build contracting as the method for delivery.
HB1113: Was signed by the Governor and increased the limits on Job Order Contracting, a type of alternative procurement useful for localities doing small repairs or renovations.
HB1116: Increases the limits on small purchase procedures adopted by localities in which they can forgo competitive sealed building so long as the project’s cost is below the bill’s threshold of $300,000.
HB1125: Creates the Business Ready Expedited Permitting Program, administered by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. This bill will allow two sites and four projects a year to be given a permitting concierge treatment by VEDP who will oversee the completion of all required permits in a timely fashion, with guardrails to ensure public comment periods are not abbreviated.
HB1126: Extends the privilege to perform rites of marriage to current Virginia members of Congress.
HB1131: Removes Richmond from the list of eligible host cities for Casino gaming.
HB1133: Changes the legal name of Virginia529 from Virginia College Savings Plan to Commonwealth Savers Plan.
HB1365: Limits when transcript withholding can be used a debt-collection practice by institutions of higher education.
HB1455: Establishes the Virginia Memory Project at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Virginia Center on Aging as the State’s Alzheimer’s and Dementia disease registry, tasked with collecting and analyzing data on Alzheimer’s and related Dementias.
HB1457: Makes changes necessary to reinstate the Virginia Investment Performance Grant, a key incentive tool used by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.
I introduced 29 bills this year, passing the above 17. Many of my bills that did not pass were brought by or responded to legitimate concerns from my district and I look forward to continue working on these issues in the next legislative session. Some of these bills include:
HB1072: In response to tragic pedestrian fatalities, this bill would have allowed institutions of higher education to set-up school zones and therefore make use of speed mitigation tools such as increased fines, additional signage, and of key interest, photospeed monitoring. The House did not pass any expansions to the placing of photospeed monitoring devices, except for one bill, SB336, which allows devices to be placed within 1000 feet of schools (current law is 750 feet) only if a traffic fatality has occurred in the area in the recent past (the bill states since January 1, 2024).
HB1077: Would have allowed cyclists to perform “safety stops,” which are rolling stops at some stop signs that allow them to negotiate intersections to avoid being hit from behind or having to cross busier intersections with no momentum or starting speed. This bill failed to report from the Senate Transportation Committee, who tabled two other bike safety bills as well, all in response to concern expressed by VDOT, DMV, State Police, and the Secretary of Transportation’s office.
HB1105: Would have created the Zoning for Housing Production Pilot Program, an incentive grant program to reward localities who opt into zoning practices currently offered in state code that promote the construction of affordable housing. This bill came from a recommendation in the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission’s 2021 Affordable Housing study. The Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee substituted this bill to become another study, signaling a lack of understanding in the background of this bill. This bill would require around $5M in seed funding which added to the Senate Money Committee’s reluctance.
HB1121: Sought to require the Department of Corrections to make available online educational courses for inmates. Upon introduction stakeholders committed to this issue brought up a recent change to Second Chance Pell Grants that went into effect in July 2023. They committed to working with me over the summer to craft a bill that can utilize this change to maximize the impact and access to meaningful higher education programs for Virginia’s imprisoned population.
HB1122: Sought to grant Richmond access to an optional ordinance relating to inclusionary zoning for affordable housing. After convening a stakeholder workgroup to address concerns, a collaborative spirit developed between previously opposing groups and led to an idea for legislation to be introduced next session that will provide for more expedient deployment of affordable housing than the originally introduced legislation.
HB1124: Was the Faith in Housing for the Commonwealth Act, which would have granted faith organizations by-right development authority to construct affordable housing. There were concerns over the density allowed as well as technical concerns. This bill was sent to the Virginia Housing Commission to arrive at a fine-tuned bill for introduction in the 2025 Session.
HB1456: Sought to require new school construction to include the infrastructure necessary to implement roof-top solar. This bill was tabled in House Appropriations due to its indeterminate fiscal impact. I look forward to working to fine-tune the language of this bill as well as review other means of promoting energy efficient and carbon neutral government buildings.
Neighborhood Infrastructure Walks
The Museum District Association is planning an infrastructure walk, where neighbors walk the district and note items in need of repair and report them on RVA311. The event, March 18, at 5pm, concludes with a happy hour.
I share this event not only for residents of the Museum District who may be interested, but for other neighborhoods who may be interested in organizing this for their own neighborhoods. Strong, consistent, and thorough reporting of infrastructure needs is a crucial way for citizens to get their projects prioritized by the City.
Thank You
It is an honor to serve in the House of Delegates. Please never hesitate to contact me at delegate.carr@betsycarr.org or 804-698-1078 if I can be helpful to you.
Sincerely,
Betsy