2024 VBC Policy Priorities

Strategic and prudent stewardship of the state budget, with investments in education, transportation and other essential services that strengthen the overall business climate, are critical to ensure Virginia remains competitive. To this end, the VBC supports: - Protection of Virginia’s AAA bond rating. - Comprehensive review of Virginia’s tax system to better position the Commonwealth for economic growth and investment. - Protection of Virginia’s Right-to-Work law. - Restored financial solvency to the unemployment insurance trust fund. - Protection of Virginia’s pro-business legal climate.

The VBC supports: - Long-term strategic planning to guide Virginia’s efforts to develop and maintain a positive business climate and - Efforts to ensure Virginia fosters a business climate that encourages entrepreneurship, business growth and new business formation. - Implementation of economic growth strategies for the Commonwealth and each of its regions. - Increased investment in and development of business-ready economic sites (including mega-sites), as well as buildings and related infrastructure. - Continued investment in important economic development programs, including Virginia’s Talent Accelerator Program and the Virginia Jobs Investment Program (VJIP). - Increased investment in marketing Virginia to site selectors and corporate leaders through robust advertising, branding, lead generation and site consultant cultivation. - Continued expansion and increased capacity in Virginia’s International Trade plan. - Continued support for the GO Virginia initiative. - Strategically targeted financial incentives to retain existing jobs, grow existing businesses and attract new business investment and jobs to Virginia. - Increase federally and privately funded research at Virginia’s higher education institutions and expand the activities of research universities as hubs for entrepreneurship and new business startups. - Ensure Virginia’s business and legal climate allow for innovation. - Expansion of opportunities to fully leverage Virginia’s ports. - Intentional and meaningful strategies to address economic, educational, and employment opportunity gaps for underrepresented and disadvantaged communities.

Building a quality workforce demands a long-term vision, and unwavering commitment to a comprehensive workforce development strategy that: - Is directly responsive to Virginia’s workforce needs. - Begins at an early age and extends into adulthood. - Encourages vertical and horizontal collaboration within and outside the education system. - Breaks down barriers and silos that hamper success. - Fully leverages resources, without unnecessary duplication and a lack of coordination. - Incorporates best practices and scalability, transcending geographic, age-based and cohort boundaries. - Provides competency-based education at all levels, with a focus on individual and team abilities with skill and knowledge acquisition, as well as a base-level of human relations or “soft” skills that emphasize quality communications, problem solving, critical and creative thinking, dependability and customer service. - Ensures all aspects of Virginia’s educational and workforce development systems are accountable and measurable, including in the area of career readiness. - Includes career exploration and development at earlier ages to identify potential career pathways sooner and better equip students to prepare to join the workforce. Specific priorities here include: - Investment in and reform of early childhood education to set our children on a path for success. - Strengthening K-12 learning and career development for all students. - Improved career and technical training and the secondary and post-secondary levels. - Expanded and enhanced career exploration throughout a student’s educational experience. - Ensuring K-12 assessments provide accountability for our schools, educators and students. - Better aligned education and workforce development systems with talent gaps and industry workforce needs. - Maintained quality and affordability for Virginia’s public colleges and universities. - Strengthened data collection that illustrates linkage between education and workforce and employment outcomes.

The VBC continues to support a comprehensive approach that reduces healthcare costs, increases quality and transparency in the delivery of care, and improves access to quality healthcare for all Virginians. This includes: - Encouraging and supporting employee wellness and preventative care programs that lead to a healthier, more productive workforce. - Innovative solutions that expand health care coverage and reduce health care costs for Virginia’s business community and workers. - Continued efforts to understand cost drivers in Virginia’s healthcare delivery system and to identify solutions to curb the rising costs of healthcare at the state level. - Strategies that address the healthcare workforce shortage. - Reduced prescription drug costs. - Stabilization of Virginia individual marketplace. - Reform of healthcare delivery and payment models. - Protection Virginia’s healthcare providers. - Strategies and policies that combat addiction and behavioral health challenges. - Improve health equity and social determinants of health.

TRANSPORTATION The VBC supports: - Investment and continued development of a safe, reliable, efficient, multimodal transportation network. - Thoughtful and collaborative transportation decisions that focus on innovation, economic development, and creating a high return on taxpayer investment. - Continued development and support of Virginia’s economic gateways, considering all modes of transportation that comprise the multimodal network. - Local empowerment and collaboration that enable regions to address specific transportation needs. - Continued identification of dedicated and sustainable funding that recognizes the ongoing pressures on state and federal budgets, and challenges with current funding sources to keep pace with maintenance and expansion of the transportation network. - Continued policies that ensure transportation funding and funding mechanisms are fair and equitable. - Policies that ensure Virginia’s transportation network increases mobility and access for all Virginians to employment, education and commercial opportunities. - Advancement of projects of regional significance that deliver quantifiable and cost-effective commercial and commuter congestion relief. - Continued use of SMARTSCALE as an objective, transparent evaluation of transportation projects. - Policies that ensure timeliness and certainty in permitting and regulatory decision-making while maintaining strong, uniform standards with respect to infrastructure. - Strengthen Virginia’s aviation and aerospace assets.