This could be a bit problematic in an already cash-strapped Virginia state budget. From the Virginian-Pilot:
The entity governed by high-profile business leaders, academics and elected officials who decide which job-creating projects will get funding and which won’t is asking for $77 million for the next two years of the state’s budget cycle: $39.8 million to divvy out among nine regional councils, $28 million for statewide grants, $7.2 million for regional support (or $800,000 for each of the nine councils for administrative costs) and $2 million to cover staffing at the Department of Housing and Community Development. The grant money would carry over if unused.
That seems a tad bit much, does it not?
Of course, the grant funding just seems like an extension of the old Commonwealth Opportunity Fund, a $30 million slush fund that was used to throw money at projects such the film Lincoln (among other ideas).
Is that really the role of government?
Moreover, cloaking it in regional economic development and grants retraining is a double-edged knife. Not only are localities sidelined in favor of a self-licking ice cream cone, the grants will go to those who are still stuck in the old economy — not exactly the approach that microfinance and workforce development would generate organically.
One suspects that GO Virginia is attempting to get ahead of the automation curve by managing the outcomes (and the winners and losers). In short, it is anchoring the current economy to the emerging one. Good in some aspects, worrisome in others.
