Legislative Advocacy Archives
December 20, 2007
Hokie Day at the General Assembly has been scheduled for February 6
Greetings from Blacksburg… I write to you as we end a busy semester. Last week we awarded over 1,000 undergraduate degrees and 400 graduate degrees, adding to our total of more than 100,000 alumni in Virginia. As you may know, last Thursday Governor Kaine held a press conference to announce his higher education initiatives in the 2008-2010 Executive Budget. The key item was a $1.65 billion bond package for a variety of new construction and renovation projects for colleges and universities. The bond package includes $117.8 million for Virginia Tech to support the renovation of Davidson Hall, the construction of a new sciences building and a facility in Roanoke for the proposed private medical school and research institute - a public-private partnership with Carilion Clinic. The package also includes $28.2 million for a new Human and Agricultural Biosciences building.
Other higher education items in the budget included restoring a portion of the budget reductions proposed in October. You may remember that in October the Governor announced over $300 million in budget reductions for state agencies, including colleges and universities, to help cover the revenue shortfall (about $90 million came from higher education). For Virginia Tech, over $10 million was cut from the university budget and over $2 million from the Cooperative Extension and Agriculture Experiment Station budget. The new Executive Budget allocates $3.6 million to Virginia Tech as partial restoration of the cuts.
The legislative session begins on January 9. We need our alumni and friends to continue to advocate for increased operating funding for higher education, beyond the Governor’s proposals, and for the proposed bond initiative. A bond program, if approved by the General Assembly, must be approved by all voters the following November. The latest figures calculated by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia estimate higher education is underfunded by $411 million. This includes over $70 million for Virginia Tech’s underfunded programs.
Our next Hokie Day at the General Assembly has been scheduled for February 6.
I hope you can join us in Richmond to advocate for higher education and specifically for Virginia Tech. Please contact Nancy Hagen at nhagen@vt.edu or (804) 786-8110 for additional information or to RSVP if you can join us. Next month, an agenda, key talking points, and directions can be found at http://www.alumni.vt.edu/. We will send you regular updates during the session. Please feel free to share this information with other interested alumni and friends who will serve as advocates like you do so generously for Virginia Tech.
Spirits among our students, faculty and staff have been healthy at the university all this fall. The good wishes and support of you and other alumni have helped tremendously. And we hope to see many Hokies at the Orange Bowl in January to signal the start of 2008 with another victory.
Best wishes for the holidays,
Tom Tillar
Virginia Tech Alumni Association
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