Governor Glenn Youngkin presented his proposed adjustments to the state budget in mid-December. The set of Virginia tax changes Governor Youngkin proposed in his 2023 budget amendments are far more extensive and involves substantially more tax relief than the descriptions he offered in his December 15 presentation. However, no mention of substantive transportation funding (up or down) was in his text.
In his presentation, Youngkin focused on two major tax proposals. He wants to cut the corporation income tax by 16%, from a headline tax rate of 6% to 5%. He wants to cut the top income tax rate for individuals from 5.75% to 5.5%. Since that top rate kicks in at $17,000 of taxable income, quite a few middle income households will benefit from that.
As far as transportation funding goes: overall highway construction and state of good repair funding will stay consistent with the Commonwealth Transportation Board’s (CTB) forecasted budget. There are only a few new proposals:
One proposal is the infusion of funding into the Transportation Partnership Opportunity Fund (TPOF). You may recall the Governor wants economic investments into “mega sites.” He points to large manufacturing plants recently committing to set up in other states because there were no viable Virginia mega sites. One of multiple efforts the Governor is proposing is to reallocate about $100 million from the VA Transportation Infrastructure Bank and direct the CTB to provide $200 million from revenue increases. TPOF can provide grants and zero interest loans to public entities for transportation related efforts.
The other proposal is to offer $500,000 to study the use of public-private partnership in completion of 325 mile long, I-81 improvements.
The Governor also is proposing additional investments into workforce development efforts to community colleges and Go Virginia initiatives.
VTCA will monitor these, and any other transportation construction related issues, as the General Assembly arrives in Richmond in January.