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RICHMOND, Va. -- The recently finalized Virginia budget makes significant investments in mental health services across the state, according to mental health advocates.
Gov. Glenn Younkin signed the budget into law in early September. It allocates billions of dollars in surplus funds to be used for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends in July. Many components of the funding for mental health services reflect Youngkin's "Right Help, Right Now" behavioral health plan, which emphasizes community–centered mental health care.
The budget allocates $58 million from the general fund to "expand and modernize" Virginia's comprehensive crisis services system. This includes investment in crisis receiving centers and crisis stabilization units, as well as enhancements to existing sites. Crisis receiving centers are alternatives to hospital emergency rooms, and offer communities a "no-wrong-door access to mental health and substance use care," according to the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.
Youth Mental Health Care
Lawmakers allocated over $10 million for the Virginia Mental Health Access Program. The program helps address the state's shortage of pediatric mental health specialists by training primary care providers in mental health care and offering a call line for weekly support, according to the program's assistant director of operations Rachel Reynolds.
There are 264 child and adolescent psychiatrists in Virginia, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. That equates to 14 psychiatrists for every 100,000 children, the national average, and falls within the range of a "severe shortage." There are many counties without a child psychiatrist.
This $4 million increase from last year will help the program broaden its service scope beyond pediatric care, Reynolds said.
"The biggest part of this additional $4 million allocation is going to be used to expand the program to perinatal health and maternal health," Reynolds said. "It's going to be able to include support for postpartum individuals, and they can be seen either through a pediatric office or an OB-GYN's office."
More than $12 million is allocated for child psychiatry and children's crisis response services and divided among health planning regions based on the current availability of services. The funds can be used to hire or contract child psychiatrists, train other health care providers or create new crisis response services with an ultimate goal to keep children out of inpatient care and encourage community-based services.
The budget included an additional $5 million for school-based mental health integration grants. These grants allow schools to partner with community mental health providers and bring care directly to students, according to Rachael Deane, CEO of Voices for Virginia's Children, a child policy and advocacy organization.
"It's really bringing that support system to the school, which we feel is a really commonsense way to go about it," Deane said. "We know that kids spend a lot of their time in school and in the school community, and these grants allow schools to help meet mental health needs by bringing folks into the school setting."
Voices for Virginia's Children continues to advocate for sustained funding for school-based mental health programs, Deane said. Overall, the organization is pleased with what funding has been allocated but "could always use more."
"We're immediately now looking forward to December, where the governor will unveil his proposal for the next biennial budget in Virginia, and we're hoping that even more investments for mental health will be in that budget," Deane said.
Community-Based Care
Other funding highlights include a one-time fund of $5 million for the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services to contract with local law enforcement agencies to transport individuals in emergency mental health situations to treatment facilities or to assume custody of them.
An allocated $18 million will allow community services boards staff to see a salary increase, effective Jan. 1 next year.
The budget allocates $3.1 million, a $1.5 million increase since last year, for the Behavioral Health Student Loan Repayment Program. The program promises to repay a portion of an eligible behavioral health professional's student loan debt in exchange for their commitment to practice in Virginia for a minimum of two years, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
A student loan repayment program, and others like it, can help support the pipeline for mental health professionals, according to Bruce Cruser, executive director of the advocacy group Mental Health America of Virginia.
This budget is a great first step, Cruser said, but the organization hopes to see more support and funding for the pipeline in the next biennial budget.
"We could have all the funded services out there in the world, but if we don't have people to provide the services, it doesn't get us anywhere," Cruser said.
"We need to have incentives to encourage people to go into the mental health field at all levels, from psychiatric nursing to therapists to psychiatrists to peer supporters," Cruser said. "We really want to see a big effort there."
RICHMOND, Va. -- Virginia schools will be able to hire more support staff positions, something educators say is desperately needed amid a continued teacher shortage.
State lawmakers last month approved an amended budget that will direct $152 million toward these school support positions. The appropriations help boost the ratio of allotted support staff per teacher. The funding ratio increased from 21 support positions per 1,000 pupils to 24 per 1,000 pupils -- though the older standard was 26 support positions, according to a July report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
This funding has been capped for over a decade, following a $3.7 billion shortfall in the Great Recession-era budget that was never adjusted. The cap reduction resulted in a $331 million reduction in state education funding last year, according to JLARC.
Some positions limited by the cap include administrative, clerical and operations staff, as well as technology and instructional professionals, according to the Virginia Association of School Superintendents website. Many education groups say the cap has resulted in the loss of thousands of support staff, even as enrollment grew.
The state's Standards of Quality provide the foundation for public education, including minimum staffing needs. The standards typically under-calculate how much staff is actually needed, according to JLARC. Elimination of the support cap was a near-term recommendation on the report.
Virginia school divisions receive less K–12 funding per student than the national average, according to JLARC. Other states receive just under $2,000 more per student.
Chad Stewart, the Virginia Education Association's policy analyst, said this cap was supposed to be temporary.
"An entire generation of kids have gone through their K-12 experience in the state of Virginia with far less support staff for helping their schools function and making sure that teachers weren't overwhelmed with all these additional duties, and could focus on teaching," Stewart said.
When there is an inadequate amount of support staff in schools, teachers or other support staff have to fill multiple positions, according to Stewart.
"It takes them [teachers] away from the duties they're trained to do, which is supporting students in different ways," Stewart said.
Guidance counselors in particular have fulfilled multiple support positions, such as monitoring cafeterias or clerical work in the office, according to Stewart. A law took effect July 1 to ensure counselors spend at least 80% of their time doing direct counseling of students.
Teacher Karl Knoche has worked at Virginia Beach City Public Schools since 2007. He has taught government and economics at First Colonial High School since 2014.
"All the support staff at my school does a great job of helping teachers and students, and I feel that I can go to them with any problems," Knoche stated in an email.
Knoche has extra duties such as monitoring students between classes, during lunch and before school, which can be "time consuming," he stated.
Teachers seem to have more responsibilities outside of the classroom than when he first started teaching, according to Knoche.
"We have been fortunate at my school to be fairly well staffed," Knoche stated. "We have had issues with having enough custodians, but that isn't due to the lack of jobs, but the lack of interest in the jobs."
Virginia leaders have grappled with teaching vacancies in recent years. The General Assembly committed to increasing compensation with 5% pay increases over three consecutive fiscal years starting in 2022, according to JLARC.
However, the pay increases may not address low or no compensation in previous years, coupled with inflation the past two years, the report stated. Additionally, not every school division could fund the full 5% increases because their locality does not provide enough matching funds "for employees not recognized through the SOQ formula."
Virginia ranks No. 22 for teacher pay, which is an average salary of about $61,000, according to the National Education Association.
The state had over 3,500 unfilled teaching positions in the 2022-23 school year. Elementary school teachers accounted for the most vacancies, followed by special education, according to data from the Virginia Department of Education. Special education positions at 5.8% had the highest percentage of unfilled positions, followed by world language and then elementary school teachers.
The VDOE announced a strategic plan in 2022 to improve teacher recruitment and retention. The goals are to make it easier for qualified teachers to be hired, consider more candidates eligible to fulfill open positions and reinforce strategies that maintain a thriving workplace, such as programs focused on teacher retention.
The use of appropriated funds will vary by district, but the intent is that local school divisions will use funds for support staff positions, according to a VDOE email response.
