The House of Delegates Emergency Committee on the Impacts of Federal Workforce and Funding Reductions met Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in Alexandria to hear from local elected officials, business leaders, representatives from labor, and higher education administrators on the impact of federal job and funding reductions on the Northern Virginia region. During the morning portion of the hearing, committee witnesses included Hamilton Lombard, Joao Ferreira, and Terry Rephann from the Weldon Copper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, Jill Kaneff and The Honorable John Chapman, from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission, Mark Carrier, from the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Patrick Small, City of Manassas Economic Development Director, Alissa Tafti, from the NoVA Labor Federation, and The Honorable Jeff McKay, Chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
Committee witnesses for the afternoon portion of the hearing included Jason Gleason and Wally Burnett, from Crossroads Strategies, Deborah Alltenburg, from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and Dr. Anne Kress, from Northern Virginia Community College.
According to a presentation by the Northern Virginia Regional Commission, federal jobs account for roughly 6% of the workforce in northern Virginia and about 5% of jobs for the entire state. By comparison, such government positions only account for 2% of U.S. jobs, according to the regional commission.
The committee will be meeting in regions across the Commonwealth throughout the spring and summer with the goal of submitting a report to the House of Delegates in early September. The next meeting of the committee will be conducted in Southwest Virginia. A date for this meeting has yet to be announced.
To view the agenda from the
April 8th meeting, click here. To review the presentations
and materials from committee witnesses, click here. If you would like to watch
the committee meeting in its entirety, click here.
