For months now, I have been harping on the theme that Virginia faces a challenging fiscal future and that we need to start getting our financial affairs in order now. Two more straws in the wind…
The combined unfunded liabilities of the Virginia Retirement System and other state-supported pension plans adds up to $17.6 billion, reports the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. (Read the Times-Dispatch article here.) Contributions by state government and municipalities will have to increase significantly in the next budget biennium, said Tracey Smith, a JLARC analyst in a legislative hearing yesterday.
Meanwhile, Virginia has borrowed $346 million from the federal government since October 2009 to pay unemployment benefits, and is projected to need another $613 million by April 2013. The money will have to come from the General Fund because the state’s unemployment trust fund is insolvent. (Read the Times-Dispatch reporting here.)
Now, go back and re-read “A Glimpse of Boomergeddon in Virginia’s Future,” which cites a Senate Finance Committee analysis to the effect that Virginia will pay $594 million in interest payments in fiscal 2012 to finance its ever-growing debt. (It’s a short post, so you have no excuse for not reading it.)
Gov. Bob McDonnell wants to borrow nearly $4 billion to fund road transportation projects? And he calls himself a fiscal conservative?