Funding for the Freedom House Museum, early childhood education and much more in Alexandria are likely to be "unalloted" from the Virginia state budget due to the economic contraction caused by coronavirus concerns.
Like the City of Alexandria and jurisdictions across the Commonwealth, government officials are making serious reevaluations of their earlier budget plans as unemployment has soared and businesses shut down due to coronavirus and the COVID-19 illness.
According to state documents, changes to the budget include funding that was dedicated to the Freedom House Museum, which the City of Alexandria recently purchased, and more.
Gov. Ralph Northam wrote in a memo:
"New circumstances now require us to revisit those decisions. The economic effects of COVID-19 will not be clear for some time. While it is too soon to obtain an accurate reforecast of revenues, we will need to do it once the economic fog has lifted, so that we can then identify a path to return to the progressive investments we have made together. Until that can happen, I do not want to eliminate specific appropriations without first knowing the overall level of spending reductions that is required. As a result, I am proposing 83 amendments to specifically 'unallot' new, discretionary spending across all agencies."
Those 83 amendments include unallotments across all categories from early childhood education to public safety, cultural support, education, health, transportation and more.
See Gov. Ralph Northam's full amendment letter and more information here.
In a Facebook Live event Thursday evening, Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson told residents that funding from the CARES Act will reach local jurisdictions like Alexandria to help fund things like childcare for local essential workers.
However, he also called changes to the state budget "horrific."
With Democrats in full control of the state budget for the first time in decades, the pre-coronavirus state budget had significant changes including new funding for higher education, childhood education, public safety, several Alexandria initiatives and more.
"Well, it's all gone," Wilson said. "The Governor proposed amendments to [the budget] last week, and he has essentially deallocated all new spending. ... What he's done is he hasn't cut it all, he's basically put it aside and said we're just going to adopt a budget with deallocation of these priorities with an understanding that everything is kind of unknown. They don't know what the revenue situation is going to look like over the next two years."
Wilson continued, "He's going to try to leave things in place, see what happens, and we'll see where we end up."
The General Assembly will be taking up Gov. Northam's amendments next week.
Among the changes that will affect Alexandria are the loss of more than $2 million in funding for the Freedom House Museum preservation, renovation and programming, funding for early childhood and other education, public safety and more.
