Edit: Combined_Budget_Amendments_2026

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= Combined Budget Amendments 2026 =

Item 67, Amendment 1H is a language-only amendment.

It directs the Compensation Board to study the growing workload involved in reviewing disabled veteran property tax exemption applications.

Local revenue offices are required to conduct detailed eligibility reviews, but this work is currently excluded from state workload formulas.

As application volumes increase, especially in places like Stafford County, staff capacity has not kept pace.

This amendment simply asks for a data-driven evaluation so staffing formulas reflect real work being done.

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Item 301, Amendment 1H provides $100,000 to support the Healing Station Counseling Center in expanding free mental health services and strengthening our local behavioral health workforce.

This funding supports no-cost clinical supervision for pre-licensed clinicians, helping more providers become fully licensed and remain in Planning District 16.

It also expands access to care for low-income and uninsured residents in the Fredericksburg region, where provider shortages remain severe.

This is a modest, targeted investment with long-term benefits for access, workforce development, and community health.

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Item 179 Number 3 H is a request to start the planning process for a partnership between the University of Mary Washington and Mary Washington Healthcare to create a public/private partnership for a medical school.

Mr. Chairman, the greater Fredericksburg region is a healthcare desert when it comes to our healthcare workforce, especially for doctors and nurses. If you look at the greater Fredericksburg region per capita in terms of the number of primary care physicians, it compares to rural South Dakota. The Virginia Office of Education Economics estimates that the state will need an additional 1,055 doctors by 2029 alone.

With the fastest growing population in the Commonwealth – doubling since 2000 and the largest VA Healthcare Center on the eastern seaboard, the greater Fredericksburg region is in dire need of medical professionals.

This opportunity is vastly different from our existing medical schools in that it is designed with a clinical focus to attract students from the region who want to stay in the region and practice. Too many of our medical school graduates now are moving away for other opportunities in other states once they get their degrees.

These planning resources will give UMW the ability to do the necessary due diligence around financing, governance, program development, and cost models to incentivize students to remain in the Commonwealth and shorten time to degrees.

It also affords the opportunity to begin exploring opportunities with our HBCUs and other institutions in underserved regions of the Commonwealth.