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2008 Legislative Agenda Priorities

Address Northern Virginia's Transportation Crisis

Addressing Northern Virginia's transportation crisis in a significant and meaningful way is critical to the continued growth and workforce needs of Northern Virginia's technology economy—and by extension to the long term health of the state's economy.

• Continue implementation of the 2007 Northern Virginia transportation funding plan to provide a new, sustainable and dedicated annual revenue stream of almost $400 million to address transportation and mass transit funding needs for this region.
• Implement policies, tax incentives and broadband infrastructure to expand the use of telework in both the private and public sector throughout the Commonwealth with a goal of 20 percent of all eligible positions taking advantage of telework.
• Increase cohesion within the Northern Virginia Delegation to the General Assembly to enable our region to speak with a strong, unified, bipartisan voice on regional needs, particularly with regard to transportation.
• Develop, study and move aggressively on the construction of a Techway Bridge to connect the technology centers of Virginia and Maryland, reduce Beltway congestion and facilitate the evacuation of the National Capital Region.

Take the Initiative to Keep Virginia Competitive in a Global Economy

Virginia's technology industry has to operate within a highly competitive global economy. While Virginia benefits substantially from today's global economy, some regions of the state have lost jobs and experienced diminished economic activity in that same global economy. Policymakers must ensure that the entire Commonwealth is poised to benefit and compete in the global economy.

• A strong Secretary of Technology and continued support of the Virginia Information Technology Investment Board, the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) and public-private partnerships are critical to achieve the goal of being the best place to do business in the world.
• Promote public-private collaboration to develop and employ green technologies, establish incentives to encourage faster commercialization of alternative sources of energy, support voluntary, marketoriented programs such as Energy Star to accelerate the adoption of energy efficient technologies, and establish recycling programs for information technology products that have reached the end of their useful lives.
• Oppose the adoption of protectionist legislation that would unilaterally impose blanket policies on state procurement officials in order to restrict their ability to procure goods and services from companies that utilize offshore labor. Such policies isolate Virginia in the global market place.
• Capitalize on the Virginia International Trade Alliance (VITAL) to further distinguish Virginia as a global business hub through increased international marketing efforts.
• Ensure broadband access for every Virginia business and create focused incentives to promote greater use of Virginia's statewide workforce by Virginia-based technology businesses.

Stop Chronically Underfunding Northern Virginia's Institutions of Higher Education

George Mason University (GMU) and the Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) are primary anchors for Northern Virginia's technology community, which continues to power Virginia's economy and drive state revenues. While these institutions have been tremendously successful in educating the technology workforce of today and tomorrow while accommodating a disproportionate share of the state's enrollment growth, they have done so despite significant and chronic underfunding from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

• Increase General Fund support to GMU to bring its level of funding to the average of all other doctoral granting institutions, or approximately $8600 per full time in-state student. Despite Northern Virginia's prominence in the state economy and the high costs of doing business in the region, GMU's present General Fund budget allocation reflects a funding shortfall of over $2,000 per in-state student.
• Increase funding for NVCC to 100 percent of the state's base budget adequacy guidelines.
• Increase the capital outlay funding for GMU and NVCC to the level required by state funding guidelines. Capital funding is desperately needed to accommodate the disproportionate enrollment growth these institutions continue to absorb.

Increase Research Funding at Virginia Universities

Increased research funding is critical to better leverage federal and private sector research investment, to support the recruitment and retention of world-class faculty and graduate students, and to bolster the international credibility of Virginia's research institutions. Through strong and sustained research investments, Virginia has the opportunity to grow its capacity for innovation and to advance technology, to build knowledge capital, to create intellectual property with long term commercialization potential and to create new companies and new industries across the Commonwealth. Through a strong Center for Innovative Technology (CIT), Virginia has the ability to retain and leverage the knowledge capital we build within the Commonwealth.

• Provide for a $3 billion statewide higher education bond issuance with an emphasis on funding for research facilities and equipment to ensure Virginia schools have the capacity to attract cutting-edge researchers and the infrastructure to compete for high value research projects.
• Provide $7 million in annual funding for CIT which, over the past 25 years, has been instrumental in ensuring Virginia's education, research and workforce investments remain in the Commonwealth. CIT returns $14 to Virginia's economy for every dollar Virginia invests.
• Expand CIT's successful GAP Fund which has earned national recognition for its efforts in encouraging Virginia entrepreneurs and innovative technology start-up companies to locate and grow within the Commonwealth by investing in seed-stage firms with a high potential for successful commercialization, rapid growth and downstream private equity financing.
• Support efforts and incentives to recruit research-intensive industry to Virginia to drive more research activity in our institutions of higher education and promote policies that foster stronger collaboration among universities and between universities and private sector partners. Provide targeted money to facilitate and accelerate the transfer of intellectual property from university research settings to commercial use.
• Update Virginia's sales and use tax exemption for research equipment to reflect current research practices and activities and to elevate Virginia's competitive research environment. While not as competitive as the R&D tax credits offered by many states, a more meaningful tax exemption for research will help attract more private research activity.
• Support additional investments in the Commonwealth Technology Research Fund (CTRF) to focus on strategic enhancement, matching funds, industry inducement and the commercialization of technologies to attract public and private research funding for institutions of higher education in order to further technological and economic development in Virginia.
• Support transformation of the Angel Investment Tax Credit from a mechanism that places an aggregate cap on individual capital investments in small companies to a more predictable tax deduction, as recommended by the VRTAC.

Provide More Highly Skilled Workers to Power Virginia's Technology Economy

The growth potential for Virginia's technology industry is currently limited by an insufficient number of qualified technology workers and the education system is not graduating a sufficient number of people with degrees in math, science, engineering and technology-related fields.

• Revamp the system for credentialing teachers to address the statewide shortage of math and science teachers and to ensure all teachers have sufficient proficiency in math, science and technology.
• Incorporate industry validated standards for knowledge regarding technology into the Virginia Standards of Learning and provide resources for all school systems to establish science- and technologyintensive centers of excellence.
• Consolidate Virginia's workforce programs and training initiatives and ensure we have strong business community participation and oversight. Virginia continues to operate inefficiently with more than 20 workforce programs spending over $300 million, spread amongst nine state agencies. Local workforce boards must be smaller in number, better reflect the need of local communities and in a position to make policy decisions on workforce issues.
• Provide base adequacy funding for Virginia's One Stop Career Center System. Policymakers should ensure these centers are talking to the unemployed and underemployed citizens of Virginia and engaging the business community in offering services to meet their workforce needs.
• Grow Southwest Virginia's technology economy by expanding Virginia's "Return to Roots" program to encourage highly skilled workers to return to the region to live and work.
• Better align high school graduation requirements with university admissions requirements to make math and science requirements more rigorous, as has been done in 12 other states.
• Support innovations to introduce children to science and technology at the earliest possible age such as the Science Museum of Virginia's Northern Virginia facility; "SciencePort" in Belmont Bay and the proposed Children's Museum of Northern Virginia.