Members of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration offered an optimistic view of the Commonwealth’s finances Wednesday morning, but Senators from both parties disputed what future cuts could lead to next year.
Youngkin’s Secretary of Finance Stephen Cummings told the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday Virginia collected over $1.5 billion in additional revenues last month, a sign that the Commonwealth’s economy remains healthy.
“Revenue collections in May came in strong, well above expectations and we’re firmly on track to meet, frankly, exceed 2025 forecasts,” Cummings said.
But Democratic Senator Barbara Favola expressed concerns about how state revenues could be impacted once President Donald Trump’s budget bill gets passed and cuts to assistance programs kick in.
“What we would call the working poor, who are contributing to the withholdings, the sales tax, the income tax," Favola asked. "I would just love to see where that falls.”
Cummings said future cuts would have to be reflected in the next budget cycle, and Governor Glenn Youngkin’s billion-dollar quote “cushion” could help if the cuts come before then.
“It could not and does not reflect any thoughts that could take place with the One Beautiful Budget Bill and that’s my point," Cummings told officials. "Over the next six months all those issues will be determined."
"First, we’ll do revenues, and we’ve added that with unspent appropriations," he added. "But then we’ll understand what ever is decided from DC."
Majority Leader Scott Surovell also questioned the rosy outlook Cummings portrayed.
"We obviously disagree with [some of the spending] Gov. Youngkin vetoed," the Fairfax senator said, pointing to capital improvement's the governor nixed to help build his cushion for Trump's cuts. He also said housing and commercial real estate was stagnating and worried about record high consumer debt.
But Republican Senator Richard Stuart blamed inflation spikes in the last few years.
“That didn’t happen in the last couple months, did it? And, in fact, inflation is trending down now, isn’t it? And that should ease consumer debt some, shouldn’t it?” Stuart asked of Cummings to which the Finance Secretary agreed.
Still, Surovell pointed to recent reporting from Radio IQ which suggested some of Youngkin's own appointees were growing frustrated with Trump's inconsistency.
"I'm just curious whether any of those [concerns] give the administration any kind of concern about whether we'll be able to meet our targets?" he asked.
"Those [concerns] are on our watch list which create risk to the budget," Cummings said, pointing to the cushion. "If we weren't worried about them, we wouldn't have done that."
Other worries from Wednesday’s meeting included SNAP benefit cuts under the budget reconciliation bill. Changes in the program could see Virginia instead of the federal government covering hundreds of millions of dollars for the program by 2027.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
