EXECUTIVE ORDERS PROJECT: General Assembly Emergency Committee Holds First Meeting to Hear About Federal Workforce, Funding Cuts
The emergency committee will meet throughout the year and prepare a report with policy recommendations to address the needs of Virginians affected by the cuts.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Spotsylvania County is the Virginia locality that receives the second largest amount of federal funding—$19.1 billion in fiscal year 2024, behind only Fairfax County, which received $41.4 billion.
Federal funding accounts for about 10% of all local revenue collected by Virginia’s localities, and some of the state’s smaller towns and cities are even more reliant on federal money—such as the Town of Culpeper, which receives 22.6% of its revenue from the federal government.
About 475,000 Virginia residents work for the federal government and if there were a 10% reduction in that workforce, the state would lose $250 million in state tax revenue and $6.1 billion in economic output.
These statistics were presented by the General Assembly’s House Appropriations Committee, the Virginia Municipal League, and the Weldon-Cooper Center for Public Service at the first meeting of the General Assembly Emergency Committee on the Impacts of Federal Workforce and Funding Reductions on Saturday.
Don Scott, speaker of the House of Delegates, convened the committee earlier this month as a response to the Trump Administration’s move to “significantly reduce the size of government” and implement “large-scale reductions in [the federal work]force,” as stated in a February 11 Executive Order.
Fredericksburg-area delegates Josh Cole, a Democrat representing Fredericksburg City and parts of Stafford and Spotsylvania counties, and Hillary Pugh Kent, a Republican representing King George and part of Caroline counties, were appointed to serve on the bipartisan committee along with 10 other delegates.
The committee is tasked with collecting and analyzing data on the potential scope of workforce reductions; assessing the likely economic and budgetary impacts of cuts in federal funding; engaging with stakeholders to understand their concerns; and providing policy recommendations for the General Assembly to adopt, Chair David Bulova said at Saturday’s meeting.
“It is very true that as the Virginia House of Delegates, we do not have direct control over the cuts being implemented or imposed by the administration, but we do have responsibility for two areas,” Bulova said—balancing the state budget, as required in the state constitution, and protecting the state’s AAA bond rating.
“One of my favorite terms is ‘failing to plan is planning to fail,’” Bulova said. “We owe it to our fellow Virginians to plan upfront.”
Bulova said the federal employees being affected by the reductions are “our friends, neighbors, constituents, and family members.”
“They will be turning to us as their elected leaders to do what we can to help,” he said. “We are a Commonwealth. Everything we do here is done towards the common good.”
The emergency committee will meet four times this year in different parts of the state and will produce a final report with recommendations no later than December 15, 2025.
At Saturday’s organizational meeting, the committee heard presentations from the above-mentioned groups, as well as the Virginia Employment Commission and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
Clerk Mercer, with the MWCOG, said that each federal job generates between “0.4 and 3” related service jobs—coffee shop baristas, dry cleaners, gym owners—that will be affected by federal reductions in force.
He said “good, crisp data” is not available about how many federal jobs have already been cut because the situation is so fluid, but the estimate is 295,000—a combination of probationary employees who have been fired and employees who took the “fork in the road” offer.
Mercer clarified that the category of probationary employees includes both new hires who have been on the job for fewer than three years and “midcareer and seasoned” employees who have recently gotten raises or promotions.
Eric Scorsone, executive director of the Weldon-Cooper Center, said that a 10% reduction in the federal work force would translate to 40,000 Virginia jobs lost. Prior to the new presidential administration, the center forecast the addition of about 40,000 new jobs to the state economy, so the loss of that number would mean a stagnant job market and could “imply a possible recession,” Scorsone said.
“This is not a prediction, but a scenario,” he stressed.
Kim McCay, an analyst with the House Appropriations Committee, presented on the impacts of federal spending on Virginia’s budget. She said that one-third of state spending is supported by federal funds, largely in the areas of education and health and human services.
Medicaid is the top program supported by federal funds (receiving $14.6 billion in fiscal year 2024), followed by public education, which received $2.5 billion in fiscal year 2024, largely in the form of Title I funds to support low-income and special education students.
Fully one-half of all spending from agencies within the state departments of Veteran’s Affairs and Defense Affairs is supported by federal funds, McCay said.
“Virginia’s state budget relies on federal funding to provide core services to its citizens,” she said.
Virginians also benefit from direct federal funding in the form of social security payments ($38.1 billion in FY24) and support from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs ($7.7 billion), McCay said.
Following the presentations, Cole said that at upcoming meetings of the emergency commission, he’d like to hear first-person testimonies from Virginians who have been affected by workforce and funding cuts.
“This is not just impacting people with federal jobs, but all across the board, people will be feeling the hurt,” he said. “We need to hear from these people who are being impacted.”
Kent said she’d like to hear more about the impact on rural counties, noting that during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, federal employees who could telework moved to these counties.
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