Governor to call 'timeout' on budget, suspend all new spending, use cash for essential services

Gov. Ralph Northam will suspend all new spending in the pending two-year, $135 billion state budget and divert planned deposits in the state’s reserves to pay for essential services in the public health and economic crises caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The budget strategy will give Northam and the General Assembly time to reassess the economic damage and outlook for future state revenues, as well as determine how much money the federal government will send to Virginia in emergency stimulus funding and how the state can spend the money.

“It’s kind of like a great timeout until we get a better idea of what the economy looks like,” Clark Mercer, the governor’s chief of staff, said in an interview on Monday to outline the budget plan.

The plan represents recognition of the stark new reality that confronts Virginia lawmakers less than a month after the General Assembly adopted a pair of budgets — one for the fiscal year ending June 30, another for the two years beginning July 1 — on the same day that Northam declared a public health emergency.

Read more: https://www.roanoke.com/news/politics/governor-to-call-timeout-on-budget-suspend-all-new-spending-use-cash-for-essential-services/article_4b4a47bb-7c17-56c6-9bab-3574bf67a5b1.html