Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s 2025 budget amendment proposal includes a one-year delay of a study that would set the wheels in motion to shift ownership of the Virginia Museum of Transportation to a state agency.
The study, which was included in the 2024-26 biennial budget, was initially due Nov. 1. Two months after that due date, it has yet to be produced.
The delay follows a turbulent year for the Roanoke-based museum, which saw allegations of financial mismanagement and an investigation into the nonprofit.
A 2023 fiscal year report showed that the museum brought in $850,000 in revenue and spent more than $1.5 million. The nearly $700,000 shortfall led to allegations by some former museum board members of mismanagement and to a subsequent audit of the museum’s finances. The allegations were determined to be unfounded, according to reporting by The Roanoke Times.
Funds were allocated in the state’s 2024-2026 biennial budget to support the museum, but it was not granted designation as a state agency, which would allow it to receive recurring funding from the state.
Museum director optimistic about the delay
Mendy Flynn, executive director of the Roanoke museum, said she sees the one-year delay as an extension and said she is optimistic about the process, despite the longer timeline.
“We’re glad that it’s still in there, it just gives them more time to get it done,” she said Thursday. “They didn’t say no. We’d rather them take their time and gather the information they need to make a good decision.”
The offices of the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of Finance have not yet reached out to museum officials, aside from telling them that the deadline has moved, she said.
Those agencies were instructed in the 2024-26 appropriations bill to evaluate the feasibility and fiscal impact of converting the Virginia Museum of Transportation into a state agency, and to develop a plan for the conversion if it was determined to be financially feasible and beneficial to the commonwealth.
The effort was included in the biennium after Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, advocated for it in 2024, and former Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, advocated for it in 2022.
Rasoul, museum champion, disappointed by delay
“We’re a little disappointed in the delay of the report,” Rasoul said via text message on Thursday. “We were hoping to have this information before us going into the [2025 legislative] session to make our case for the museum becoming an agency.”
Rasoul noted during the 2024 session that the museum has existed for 60 years as the “largest museum with the most comprehensive collection that spans all modes of transportation.”
“It creates a positive multimillion dollar impact to the region and supports a variety of different businesses. It often tells the neglected role of people of color who have played a role in our transportation history with dedicated exhibits and partnerships,” Rasoul told a House Education subcommittee during the 2024 session.
The effort to convert the museum from private ownership to a state agency began in 2022, with a bill by Edwards, in hopes of making it eligible to receive state funds. That money could double the museum’s current annual budget, and would make it possible for the museum to hire more staff, make needed improvements, implement new programs, enhance promotional efforts and bring more tourists to the city, Edwards said at the time.
If the museum were to become a state agency, it would be included in the same category of other state museums that receive taxpayer funds, such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond and the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville. The transportation museum has struggled financially in recent years and before COVID-19, when the pandemic halted traffic through its doors. An influx of state dollars would allow the museum to modernize.
“The building is over 100 years old so there are lots of upgrades that are needed,” Flynn said. She is hoping the conversion of the museum to a state agency would allow for those upgrades along with an increase in interactive exhibits and educational programs.