It’s popular for people in rural Virginia to complain about Northern Virginia. In fact, sometimes it seems practically required, especially around election time.
Rural voters got outvoted on Election Day, as they always do these days; the election maps show a small splotch of blue in Northern Virginia that outvoted the vast swaths of red across the rural parts of the state.
Now we’ll segue into the next General Assembly session, where much of the leadership of the majority party (Democrats) are from Northern Virginia and rural legislators (almost always Republican) are very much in the minority.
We’ll even hear some chatter about how rural Virginia is ignored by the rest of the state; I might have even contributed to that a time or two.
Politically, that might well be true. Economically, though, I call your attention to this map, which was included in a report released recently by the General Assembly’s so-called watchdog arm, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission:
This map tracks where state revenues come from and where they get spent. The precise measure is, for every $1 of revenue that goes to Richmond, how many dollars come back in the form of state services? The darker the color, the higher the return.
There’s an accompanying chart — you can find it on page 50 of the report — that gives the actual numbers. There are 35 localities that send a dollar to Richmond and get less than a dollar back. They are almost all in or near the urban crescent. Six of the bottom 10 are in Northern Virginia. For those localities, being part of Virginia is a money-losing proposition. The other 98 counties and cities in Virginia make money on the deal. The localities that get the best return are in rural Virginia, particularly Southwest, Southside and a few near the Chesapeake Bay.
Most of these localities get more than $2 in services for every $1 they send to Richmond; seven get more than $3; one gets more than $4 — Lee County, at $4.06. Lee County may be more distant from Richmond than any other Virginia locality; parts of Lee County are closer to nine other state capitals than its own, but Lee County benefits from the state government more than any other locality in Virginia.
Let’s be blunt about this: Northern Virginia subsidizes the rest of the state. Remember back in 2012 when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made some remarks about who was paying taxes and who wasn’t that got turned into a debate over “makers” and “takers”? The implication at the time was that it was Republican voters who were the makers and Democrats were the takers, slopping at the public trough. In Virginia, it’s exactly the opposite. Eight of the 10 localities who contribute the most to state government are reliably Democratic; the other two sometimes vote Democratic. If we look at this on a dollar-per-dollar basis, then at least eight of the 10 localities that get the least back from Richmond are Democratic (and this year all 10 were). Of the 10 that get the most back on a dollar-per-dollar basis, seven are reliably Republican.
Of the 20 that get the most back, 14 are reliably Republican. In Virginia, the makers are generally suburban Democratic localities and the takers are generally rural Republican localities.
This spending in those localities tends to come in two ways: schools and Medicaid. Rural localities generally get most of their school funding from the state, and the watchdog report shows that Medicaid is what’s driving state spending; those recipients are often older and poorer — and live in rural areas.
Northern Virginia now accounts for almost 44% of general fund revenue
Northern Virginia legislators have often cited a figure of 42%; that’s now outdated. It’s now 43.8%.
The localities on this chart add up to 42.9%, but if you add in Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park, it bumps up.
This is why the Northern Virginia economy matters so much to the rest of the state: These are the localities that are making it possible to fund rural schools, pave rural roads — and, yes, take care of our neighbors who are on Medicaid.
You’ll also notice in the righthand chart that while these localities give the most, they also receive the most; that’s a function of population. What matters is the percentage: These top 10 localities account for 60.3% of the state’s general fund revenue but receive only 45.1% of it back in return.
Much of the rest winds up in rural Virginia.
Martinsville gets most per-capita state spending; Galax second
These are the 10 localities with the highest per-capita state spending.
Martinsville $6,073
Galax $5,975
Danville $5,886
Franklin (city) $5,815
Petersburg $5,690
Bristol $5,332
Norton $5,324
Hopewell $5,016
Lee County $4,944
Scott County $4,717
Of note: Martinsville has two state facilities that boost its per-capita state spending, the Virginia Museum of Natural History and the West Piedmont Higher Education Center. Danville and Franklin both have community colleges, which likely skews those numbers some.
Goochland County gets the least per-capita state spending; Arlington County second
Here are the ones with the least:
Powhatan County $2,176
Rappahannock County $2,126
James City County $2,107
New Kent County $2,101
Alexandria $2,029
Fairfax (city) $1,950
Albemarle County $1,936
Williamsburg $1,913
Arlington County $1,648
Goochland County $1,642
Here are some of the other key takeaways from that report:
Just three agencies account for more than half of state spending
Those three are the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (which deals with Medicaid), the Department of Education and the Department of Transportation. Medicaid, schools and roads — they account for 52% of the state’s spending.
Whenever you hear about the federal government cutting funding for health services or education, that funding may disappear from the federal budget but often reappears in the state budget because the patients and students don’t go away. The responsibility for them just gets transferred. Philosophically, you can argue that’s a good thing, that states are closer to the people. In fiscal terms, here’s how that works out.
Over the past decade, 58% of the budget growth has come in just two of those three agencies — for Medicaid and schools.
Medicaid is the fastest-growing part of the state budget
The report slices and dices these numbers multiple ways. Here’s the growth in terms of actual dollars:
You’ll see that DMAS (as the Department of Medical Assistance Services is commonly called) has grown the fastest. By itself, it accounts for 45% of the state’s budget growth.
If you want to see what the actual programs are, here are the programs with the fastest growth in state spending:
Pretty much the same thing: Medicaid and schools.
Money comes into and out of the state treasury in two ways. There’s the general fund, which is what it sounds like. This is the money that legislators and the governor have the most control over because it can be used for anything. Then there’s the non-general fund; those are revenues that are specifically tied to specific programs. About one-third of the non-general fund is dedicated to Medicaid and DMAS.
If we look at the growth of programs funded through the general fund, here’s what we find:
Once again, schools and Medicaid, just in a different order.
In a decade, Medicaid has grown from 19% to 30% of the state budget
The chart above shows that, in percentage terms, the share of the state budget devoted to education hasn’t really changed. But Medicaid sure has.
James Madison University has had the highest tuition growth
This report is chock full of numbers. Here are some that readers might find of interest — average tuition growth at each state-supported school over the past decade. James Madison University has had the most; Norfolk State University the least — unless you count the community college system, in which case it has had the least. Also notice that except for Virginia State and Norfolk State, tuition has grown faster than enrollment.
You can read the whole report here.
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