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Virginia’s lawmakers finally pushed a compromise budget across the finish line and sent the HB30 conference report to Governor Abigail Spanberger’s desk. It averts a partial government shutdown and keeps state services running. But the deal is a mixed bag: a last-minute scramble, a new tax on data centers dressed up as compromise, and a handful of big policy changes shoved into one bill.
Budget deal avoids a shutdown — but not the politics
The General Assembly’s conference budget ends weeks of brinkmanship and a special-session standoff. Governor Abigail Spanberger praised the package as a pragmatic compromise that funds schools, health care, and state employees. Republican House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore called the process a mess, saying much of the plan was rewritten at the eleventh hour without normal debate. He’s right — good government doesn’t happen in midnight scrambles.
Data center tax: new fee, same incentives
At the heart of the fight is a novel approach to data centers. The budget keeps many existing sales-tax breaks, but creates an electricity-consumption fee of about $0.011 per kilowatt-hour for qualifying centers, with annual collections capped near $600 million. That’s being sold as a modest contribution by the industry. Translation: businesses still get big breaks, but taxpayers are now on the hook for more hidden costs to support the grid and infrastructure. If you like the idea of targeted taxes by any name, you’ll love this compromise.
Health cushions, cannabis rules and other giveaways
The budget also layers in health and social spending that Democrats will applaud. It sets aside roughly $150 million to cut premiums for some exchange enrollees, a $350 million Medicaid contingency reserve, a $225 million fund to blunt federal changes, and $10 million for free clinics. There’s also a $25 million childcare assistance pilot, raises for teachers and state workers, and the framework for an adult-use cannabis market. Voters should note: big new programs and new markets were quietly shoehorned into the spending bill.
Why the process matters — and what happens next
This is budget politics at its least transparent. Lawmakers avoided a shutdown, but they also handed voters a lengthy, complex spending plan that wasn’t debated piece by piece in the regular session. Governor Spanberger now has a narrow window to sign or veto sections before the new fiscal year begins. If she vetoes parts, expect another special session, and expect the same political theater to continue. The public deserves better than last-minute deals and backroom compromises.
In short: Virginia dodged a shutdown, but not a debate about priorities. Lawmakers and the governor patched together a bargain that keeps government open and pumps money into popular programs. Yet the price — a rushed process and new fees on industry — should make taxpayers and business owners ask hard questions. That’s the conservative way to look at a deal that calls itself a “compromise” but reads like a series of last-minute favors.
