Collegiate Times

The region’s chief economic driver is scrambling to make ends meet, putting Blacksburg’s financial future in question.

Virginia Tech, the largest employer in the New River Valley, has seen state budget funds cut by more than 26 percent over the past two years.

“We know that from the state level, the amount of state funding that will continue to flow to Blacksburg will continue to be curtailed,” said political science professor and local government scholar Karen Hult. “We’ve already been cut at this campus over $68 million in the last biennium. More is coming.”

Employees of the university, a major portion of the area’s population, are unlikely to see any increases in the money they have to spend.

“To some extent, it means somewhat less dollars flowing in this area,” Hult said. “Faculty and staff have not had raises for 2-3 years, we’re told we’re going to go another 3-5 years without increase.”

Faculty and staff are also set to lose money because of state mandated days of unpaid leave.

“One day of furlough is coming,” Hult said. “More days of furlough are coming. That feeds in to the local economic base.”

Hult said governor-elect Bob McDonnell’s campaign promise to issue 119,000 additional degrees in the next 15 years could alter the university’s plans.

“If you listen to governor-elect McDonnell, he says he wants to see the number of degrees being given by public universities and community colleges in the state increase dramatically,” Hult said. “Well, if that is the case, and if the main research universities like Virginia Tech are part of that plan, that would mean the student body at the undergraduate level could grow dramatically. The university doesn’t want to do that and for good reason.”

University officials have stated Tech’s undergraduate population is nearing a maximum desirable capacity of about 30,000 students.

“Pretty clearly, that raises all kinds of infrastructure issues,” Hult said. “There are not nearly enough faculty and staff as it is now and the dollars for research assistants, teaching assistants and adjunct faculty need to come with the students and that is one thing that doesn’t come from Richmond.”

Hult also said Tech may not cooperate in the downtown building strategies Blacksburg hopes to enact.

“Old Blacksburg has a solid group of developers that can be interpreted as saying Virginia Tech’s only purpose is to put people in condos and apartments,” Hult said. “So, that conflict is there, with the town having to be almost an intervener and so that feeds into the whole Blacksburg conflict as well.”