As the General Assembly works on the state’s budget for the next two fiscal years and considers other amendments during its special session, a proposed budget amendment from Gov. Glenn Youngkin could potentially have an opposite effect from its intention to help struggling police departments — and some could see closure should funding continue on its current path. Budget negotiators still don’t have a deal to consider, but must finalize the budget by June 30.
The amendment would provide a $26 million increase in state funding to Virginia’s localities with a police department, but with a catch: Any department whose budget has decreased on a per capita basis will receive no state funds.
This caveat could hurt departments that are already under financial duress, says Dana Schrad, executive director for the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police and Foundation (VACP).
She notes that smaller localities, often located in southwest Virginia, could suffer the most should Youngkin’s budget amendment for police departments go through as is, as they often don’t have the taxpayer base that larger departments, like Fairfax County, have to help provide resources.
Without an increase in state funds, police departments across the state could see damaging impacts. Schrad says that poor officer retention — particularly due to a lack of decent salary and Baby Boomers reaching retirement age — new state mandates in training, and technological equipment have already impacted austerity measures taken by localities for police department management.
“We’ve had a lot of new mandates for law enforcement that are expensive and also unfunded or underfunded. Things like Marcus Alert, training, decertification — a lot of things like that,” she says. “And then in the middle of all that, we’ve had an exodus from law enforcement. We’ve had a lot of people leave the position for a variety of reasons.”
Under Youngkin’s proposed amendment, NoVA localities — like Falls Church and Arlington, to name a few — which experienced a decrease in per-capita funding between 2019-2020, according to a data table by Virginia Mercury, could see no funding from the state through the 599 program, which gives financial assistance to localities with police departments.
Schrad says that budget decreases aren’t really occurring because localities are trying to “defund” the police — something Youngkin decried during his campaign — but rather because resources are needed elsewhere, and budgets shift annually for varying reasons.
“I don’t know of any localities that have purposely defunded or underfunded their police departments, because of some political purpose — that’s not a trend we’re seeing at all in the Commonwealth. We are seeing localities struggle to keep their police departments and keep them adequately funded,” she explains. “So the language … that the governor’s amendment put in, we don’t see that as having a major impact because we don’t know of any localities that have purposefully underfunded or defunded their police departments.”
She noted that any help through the Commonwealth’s 599 program is welcome — though a larger increase in funds would certainly be to the departments’ benefit. There are competing proposals from the General Assembly through both the House of Delegates and the State Senate, each of which has been approved by their respective floors.
Rather than see Youngkin’s proposed amendment, Schrad and the association would prefer to see the State Senate’s budget amendment, where the 599 program would see an increase in funds of $47 million — down from the initially proposed $108 million — instead of $26 million, over two years. No matter how much exactly goes into 599, Schrad says that police departments in these localities provide an important service for the community.
“There are some really essential public services that we need to be able to fund and one of those is obviously public safety. And if we can’t pay for public safety, then our other public services suffer as a result,” she says, noting that school safety could suffer should police department funding suffer.
It’s not simply a change in funds to the 599 program that could aid police departments.
“Obviously, we’re very much concerned about funding across other areas of the budget, particularly mental health reform. Because we know that money put into mental health reform is also going to reduce some of those problems, which also represent costs for law enforcement,” she says.
She continued, “Those are other costs, indirect costs for law enforcement, that if the General Assembly gives adequate funding to the mental health system, will alleviate some of the basically unbudgeted costs that law enforcement agencies deal with. So, our interests go beyond just the 599 fund, making sure that there’s a real holistic approach to funding really needed services in the Commonwealth.”
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