The Virginia Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission (JLARC) is conducting the first comprehensive review of the GO Virginia program since its establishment. In 2016 the General Assembly adopted the Virginia Growth and Opportunity (GO Virginia) Act to provide state grants to incentivize regional collaboration to address economic challenges. The GO Virginia fund has received approximately $30 million in general fund appropriations per year since FY18 and GO Virginia grant awards have averaged $15 million per year. The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) supports and administers the GO Virginia program.
The study, scheduled to be completed this December, will assess whether the program is effectively and efficiently achieving its goal, both in the short term and long term, to diversify regional economies through regional collaboration. The study will review whether GO Virginia is structured and administered effectively and efficiently to achieve its goal, including whether DHCD is effectively supporting the program. The study will also determine whether any of GO Virginia’s functions are unnecessarily duplicative of other state eco nomic development or workforce programs. Finally, based on these findings, the study will review changes that should be made to improve the program.
As part of the study, a survey of local governments and economic development authorities regarding the program was completed earlier this month. VACo members that want to provide additional comments on GO Virginia can submit them to Mark Gribbin, JLARC Chief Legislative Analyst, at mgribbin@jlarc.virginia.gov.
VACo Contact: Joe Lerch, AICP
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