RICHMOND, Virginia – The General Assembly adjourned its 2022 regular session on Saturday, but Governor Glenn Youngkin is expected to call a special session to complete compromises on a number of bills, including the budget. The budget is the only essential piece of legislation on the list, with a gap between more tax relief in the House proposal and more spending in the Senate proposal.
“I’m pleased by the progress that’s been made in the last couple of days on the budget. And actually I want to thank our legislators on both sides of the aisle for the really good work that they’ve done in the session to date,” Youngkin said in a brief press conference on Saturday afternoon.
“We still have work to do. We need to get taxes down, and we need to make investments in some really important areas like education and law enforcement,” he said.
Youngkin said that they would take a break for a couple of days before announcing a schedule for the special session.
“We’re going to keep things moving,” he said.
House Appropriations Chair Barry Knight (R-Virginia Beach) told reporters that Youngkin would call a special session after a budget compromise was reached. He said budget conferees have made progress in the past few days, but there are still sticking points on doubling the standard income tax deduction and on a full repeal of both state and local grocery taxes.
“But I think we’ll get there. I think we’ll be fine, and it’s just going to take a little time. Our problem is, we just haven’t had time to meet. So now we don’t have any distractions, we can pick a couple of days to meet, I think we’ll be fine,” Knight said.
Knight said he met with Senate Finance Chair Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) and State Senator George Barker (D-Fairfax) on Friday as part of the amicable discussions between the two sides.
Howell declined to comment, but Senator Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta) is one of the Senate’s budget conferees.
Hanger told The Star on Friday, “We’re making progress on a lot of the detail on the spreadsheets, a lot of that actually has already been done. What hasn’t fallen into place is a broad agreement on resources based on how much tax policy that we’re going to pursue based on the governor’s recommendations with differences in the House and Senate bills.”
“We basically made a decision that it was too important for us to try to rush it, and that we would basically back off a little bit our schedule and the plan would develop then,” Hanger said.
The plan to call a special session also gives life to other bills where no compromise has been reached, including lab schools legislation and bills to potentially build a Washington Commanders stadium in Virginia.
Earlier in the week as legislators were working towards a compromise on the amount of tax incentives offered to the team, The Washington Post reported on a loophole that could extend those incentives to the broader development, not just the stadium itself. That caused a last-minute tightening of the Senate’s proposal, according to The Post.
On Tuesday, Knight told reporters that conferees on that bill were far from a compromise. On Saturday, Knight said he has been dealing with Senate sponsor Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax).
“We’re involving staff to check tax policy, what we can do, and what we can’t do, and check in with the officers of the Washington football team to see what they would agree to. Because it’s kind of a collaborative deal,” he said.
“First and foremost I’m looking out for the financial interests of the state,” Knight said. “I won’t even consider it unless it is cash positive for the state of Virginia.”
– – –
Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photos by Eric Burk.
