Youngkin carves out $900 million as Virginia prepares for Trump-era uncertainty
Governor highlights investments in health, education and disaster relief while lawmakers brace for Medicaid debates
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What began as a session focused on how to spend Virginia’s projected multi-billion surplus has ended with Gov. Glenn Youngkin yanking nearly $900 million out of the state budget — bracing for the economic aftershocks of President Donald Trump’s new administration.
At the start of the 2025 legislative session both Youngkin and members of Virginia’s General Assembly had their eyes on how best to use the windfall. But after Trump took office in late January, Youngkin announced Friday that he was setting aside a $900 million cushion to prepare for potential federal impacts.
A good portion of the money stems from cutting one-time capital projects at colleges and universities and other public facilities which Youngkin said are still in the planning stages and haven’t yet entered construction.
Amid Trump’s cuts to federal workers, congressional plans to trim federal funding, and fresh tariffs rattling international trade, Youngkin has repeatedly emphasized “short-term risks” and “short-term disruptions” as reasons to hold back spending.
“As President Trump rightfully resets trade imbalances and restores fiscal responsibility in DC,” Youngkin said as he announced he was signing the state budget on Friday. “Those short term disruptions, I think, require us to be responsible and not spend 100% of this forecasted surplus today.”
House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, commended Youngkin’s actions as “prudent” in a statement issued on Friday. He added that “Virginia is better positioned to weather whatever comes next.”
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surrovell, D-Fairfax expressed frustration in a call with reporters Friday afternoon.
“I’m glad to see the governor is finally agreeing with us that the Virginia economy has some serious risk due to the actions of President Trump and Elon Musk,” Senate Surovell said on the call following Youngkin’s announcement.
However, he criticized Youngkin for not conferring with lawmakers on his budget cuts.
“He should have had a dialogue with us during the session so he could try to reach a mutual understanding or compromise about it, instead of showing up at the last minute, $900 million out of our budget,” Surrovell said.
Signed and vetoed bills
Meanwhile, the governor may have pleased many lawmakers by deciding to sign bills he had previously tried to alter.
When the legislature convened last month to review his amendments, they chose not to accept many of the amendments or substitutions he proposed when they sent the bills back to him for final signature or veto. They’d also accepted his recommendations in part on some of the bills as well.
“There are a lot of bills that I think are very interesting that I hadn’t seen before that we tried to make a little better,” Youngkin said. “Didn’t get the amendments passed, but I’m going to sign them because I think they actually are pretty decent bills.”
For instance, Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico saw several of his returned bills signed to include an overhaul of Standards of Learning testing procedures and a bill to require social media companies verify the age of users and place time limits for minors under 16. Delegates Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax and Josh Thomas, D-Prince William, respectively carried the House versions of the bills.
The governor also vetoed bills that had been sent back to him with his amendments rejected.
Such was the case with proposals from Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, and Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, that would create a right to contraception in Virginia. The lawmakers have stressed in recent years that state-level protections could be needed if two U.S. Supreme Court cases upholding contraception rights were overturned.
After the fall of Roe v. Wade, the federal case that had protected abortion access, Justice Clarence Thomas expressed interest in revisiting the court’s previous contraception rulings. While his counterparts have not signaled similar interest, some states have sought to restrict contraception, while others have worked to shore up protections.
Like last year, Youngkin tried to amend Hashmi and Price’s bills to line up with the Supreme Court, which the lawmakers said “gutted” the bills and missed the point. The Democratic-controlled legislature rejected his substitute, and he later rejected their bills altogether — just as he did this year.
Other budget bits
Meanwhile, on Friday, Youngkin celebrated some of the ways the state budget will support people, including investments in maternal health, which drew cheers from attendees. Both Youngkin and Democratic lawmakers had emphasized the need for legislation and funding to address maternal health disparities in the state, and the governor has already backed several bills carried by Democrats as well.
The budget also includes $50 million for disaster response relief in Southwest Virginia and $50 million for community flood protection funding. A years-long effort — which had previously failed — to budget $50 million to overhaul Richmond’s combined sewage overflow system survived this time around.
Following Richmond’s water crisis earlier this year, when water treatment plant failures left the region with unsafe drinking water for nearly a week, Youngkin also announced plans to invest $25 million in drinking water infrastructure.
He received applause from the audience when he mentioned the budget’s investment in education — $834 million in public education, which includes lifting support caps, investments for English language learners, investment in special education, and $7.5 million earmarked to help reduce child care waitlists. There’s also $134 million, he said, to fund “much deserved bonuses for our teachers.”
Youngkin also emphasized that the budget includes funding for Medicaid — a program that may still face some jeopardy in the state amid federal actions. Should congress cut federal spending, Virginia’s 2018 expansion, which affects roughly 630,000 people, could be at risk.
Some lawmakers have suggested that a special session might be needed to figure out how to cover those costs if that happens, while Youngkin said Friday he believes there are ways to streamline the program’s operations in the state to look for “waste, fraud and abuse.”
As it’s his final year as governor, Youngkin said he plans to address his cuts to capital projects in a “caboose budget” later this year. In that proposal he can outline what he envisions the legislature with as they head into the 2026 legislative session under whoever the new governor ends up being.
“We can postpone the final appropriation for these very worthy projects and enable the General Assembly to take it back up in January,” Youngkin said. “I would really like to include them in my introduced caboose budget, and then the General Assembly can get to work.”
This article first appeared on Virginia Mercury and is republished here with permission. Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence.
