Local delegates are gearing up to propose over 20 bills at the 2025 General Assembly session that got underway Wednesday, tackling issues such as healthcare, public safety, and funding initiatives.
Del. Wren Williams, R-Stuart, plans to introduce 12 of the 15 bills he is allowed, including the Unfunded Mandate Reduction Act, which he described as a “Good Governance Bill.”
“What it does is it looks at unfunded mandates that the state has put upon the localities, and it takes a review of those unfunded mandates and makes suggestions to the state about how to alleviate this unfunded mandate for the locality,” he said.
Williams believes the bill could save taxpayers money and has encountered minimal opposition. The act will conclude after three years, with policies vetted during its term. However, the policies would have been thoroughly vetted by the end of that time period.
“That’s a cool one that’s gotten some traction by localities because it could save their taxpayers money. I haven’t had a lot of opposition to it right now at all, there might be concerns about the process as far as what’s required to slow down legislation and look at it more carefully,” he said.
Williams plans to call it a ‘Good Governance Bill,’ in part to hopefully help it gain enough traction in the General Assembly to pass.
Another notable proposal is the Healthcare Sandbox Bill, aimed at addressing rural healthcare challenges by creating experimental zones for alternative healthcare models.
“Instead of those projects having to meet the Certified Public Need requirements, the CPN laws, it would allow them to waive those,” Williams said. He explained that the bill could enable emergency services in underserved areas like Patrick County, which previously missed out on establishing a standalone ER due to CPN restrictions.
Williams hopes the initiative will gain traction, noting, “Hopefully the initiative taken on this type of legislation will have some success.”
If the projects work well, Williams said they will receive the right to expand. If they don’t work, then they have to reform or withdraw.
Williams said this bill is more addressed to the challenges rural communities are facing when it comes to healthcare opportunities.
“We were limited in Patrick County to a 30-mile radius for a hospital to have an Emergency Room (ER) due to COPN laws. Those COPN laws say 30 miles from a hospital, you can have a stand-alone ER, but you have to be within those 30 miles, and we missed out. This Sandbox law would allow that to be approved instead of having to go by the current rules of COPN,” he said.
Williams noted the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) didn’t seem to have any immediate concerns about the bill, and that no one else has reached out to him about any complaints about the proposal.
“Hopefully the initiative taken on this type of legislation will have some success,” Williams added.
Del. Eric Phillips, R-Martinsville, plans to introduce 10 bills, with a key focus on public safety. His flagship proposal is a statewide bill to provide funding for volunteer fire departments and emergency services through a Fire Protection Fee, which is “about getting more funding for our volunteer fire departments and emergency services, so it would be a state-wide bill,” he said.
Phillips said this bill would allow individual localities to hold a referendum for residents to vote yes or no to fund public safety in a different way.
“There would be a one-cent fee if you have a residential dwelling and a one-cent fee if you have a commercial building like for businesses. It would be up to the citizens to impose that fee on themselves, just like they did with the one percent school tax,” he said.
As a Republican, Phillips said he doesn’t like fees or taxes, “but I do want to make sure we’re safe and it’s going to be a real crisis in rural Virginia, rural communities, if we can’t figure out this issue with volunteer fire departments,” he said.
He noted the vast majority of fire departments in rural Virginia and in Henry and Pittsylvania counties are volunteer agencies.
“Volunteerism is down post-COVID” in all sectors. “At the same time, the cost of buying equipment and firetrucks and things like that just keeps going up, and there’s no way to have enough Brunswick Stews and enough black pot chicken dinners to be able to pay for a $2.5 million firetruck. They were buying used trucks in some cases, and they’re still almost $1 million,” he said.
Because of this, Phillips said volunteers not only have to volunteer their time to run calls but fundraise a lot more than in the past, as well as write federal government grants to be able to get the equipment they need, and go through more training to achieve the qualifications to be able to volunteer in the first place.
“In rural areas…nine times out of ten, even if you’re in a car wreck or something, the first responders is usually going to be somebody from your local volunteer fire department. They usually show up before anybody. So, what happens if you don’t have enough volunteers, and they’re not funded well enough? I don’t know about you, but if I have a fire at my house or if I have a wreck, I want somebody to show up well-trained, well-qualified with good equipment,” he said.
In addition to meeting with over 30 volunteer department chiefs, Phillips said Virginia has done two studies on the issue and both concluded it’s a massive problem.
“It’s a crisis that’s probably a half-billion unfunded problem. What I’m proposing is certainly not going to fix the problem forever, but it’s going to be a start until we can figure out long-term what we’re going to do to be able to get these folks the money they need to protect our communities,” Phillips said.
Another bill Phillips hopes to get passed will remove the sunset provision that prevents the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and Go Virginia from using funds on the same project.
“Right now, they are able to, but that bill sunsets every couple of years. Going forward, there’s no question if it’s a worthy project. You can use funds from both state agencies on that project.” It will allow them “to be able to fund more than one project at the same time,” he said.
Phillips also seeks to address workforce development with a bill to ensure the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) counts students in workforce and FastForward training programs in its enrollment metrics.
“Patrick & Henry Community College (P&HCC) President Dr. Greg Hodges estimated the college has around 1,190 students receiving that training on top of its full-time students,” Phillips said, noting that these students currently do not factor significantly into funding calculations.
“But that 1,190 people don’t really get counted in any significant way towards their funding and things like that,” he said.
