Virginia Budgeting Before and During the COVID-19 Recession

Although Virginia’s politics and its government have long been shaped by the “traditionalistic” political culture of the Old South, northern Virginia’s location near the U.S. Capitol, the state’s population and economic growth, and particularly the growth of its northern suburban counties, have been key factors in a shift over the past 40 years toward a progressive direction. Virginia’s budget and budgeting have been shaped by both its history and these changes, as well as by the economic recession of 2001, the Great Recession of 2008–2009, and, most recently, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper reviews Virginia’s budget and budgetary process, its economic and fiscal condition before the COVID-19 recession, the ways in which the COVID-19 recession affected the state’s FY 2020 budget, and the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic affected the FY 2020–2022 budgetary process and the budget that was signed into law on May 21, 2020.