A proposed state budget amendment will discontinue localities’ using money from Help Eliminate Auto Theft grants to fund automated license plate readers.
The amendment, which Del. Irene Shin, D-Fairfax County, placed in the 2026-2028 biennium budget, asked for language to be inserted into the state police public safety and homeland security budget barring proceeds from the HEAT Fund for “the procurement or operation of automated license plate reader equipment or systems, either directly or through reimbursements, grants, or any other disbursements to local law enforcement agencies.”
Cardinal News reported that last year only one-tenth of one percent of the HEAT fund budget went toward the law’s stated purpose of paying citizen tipsters. About one-third of the fund’s $4.4 million budget went toward equipment grants for local law enforcement agencies. The majority of those grants were used for license plate reader cameras or similar public-facing surveillance technology.
Virginia Tech alumni couple donates $10 million
Tom and Cathie Woteki have made an estate gift to Virginia Tech that will benefit the College of Science and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, according to a university news release.
The couple, who received master’s degrees and Ph.D.s from the university between the late 1960s and the mid-1970s, will endow multiple faculty positions or fellowships, and graduate fellowships, to support work in transdisciplinary data science. The two colleges will split their $10 million gift.
Cathie Woteki, a member of both the National Academy of Medicine and the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Hall of Fame, has spent her career in academics and government. She was chief scientist and undersecretary for research, education, and economics in the Obama administration’s U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the Biden administration, she was on the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Tom Woteki, who played a key role in developing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s online document filing system, EDGAR, was with Northrop Grumman Mission Systems when he supervised development of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Travel System, which supports more than 900,000 users. Back at Virginia Tech since 2018, he is professor of practice emeritus and founding director emeritus at the Academy of Data Science, in the College of Science.
VT climbs in the research and development survey
Virginia Tech’s externally funded research growth and leadership in engineering, computing, and natural resources sparked a small climb in the latest National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development Survey.
The school rose one spot in the HERD study, to 56th among the nation’s institutions in total research expenditures, according to a university news release. It climbed three places, to No. 59 in external research funding, and climbed from 62nd to 61st in federal research funding.
The December 2025 study accounted for research activity from July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024, according to the news release.
Virginia Tech’s fiscal year 2024 total research expenditures were $656.9 million, total external funding was $453.4 million and total federal was $308.3 million, according to Laurel Miner, assistant vice president and chief of staff for research and innovation.
The HERD survey is the primary source of information on research and development expenditures at U.S. colleges and universities and is widely used as a benchmark for institutional research performance, the university said in the news release.
