Today is day five of Governor Terry McAuliffe’s budget impasse.
Local governments from across the Commonwealth are passing resolutions urging the Governor to separate the issue of Medicaid expansion from budget negotiations.
The City of Colonial Heights, City of Chesapeake and Hanover, New Kent and Shenandoah Counties have all passed resolutions urging the Governor to decouple the issues. The Chairman of the Board of Supervisors in Virginia’s fourth largest locality wants the Governor to separate the issues as well.
Even Medicaid expansion proponent Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms says we should separate the issues.
But when the Governor’s office was asked if they would listen to local governments and accept the compromise being offered by House Republicans?
“Positively not.”
VIRGINIA BEACH — The budget mess in Richmond is worrying many people in Hampton Roads.
Governments can’t plan their budgets until they know how much money they’ll receive from the state. That puts fire, police, and schools in limbo.
“The City Council can’t move further with their budget if they don’t know what kind of money the state’s going to give them. So it’s a trickle effect and it’s going to hurt everybody,” believes Trenace Riggs, president of the Virginia Beach Education Association.
Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms is urging the General Assembly and Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) to separate the contentious Medicaid expansion issue from the overall state budget. That way, he says, localities can know with certainty how much state funding they’ll be getting.
We reached out to the Governor to see if he is interested in separating Medicaid expansion from the overall state budget. His spokesman told us: “positively not.”