What was that I was saying recently about Virginia’s qui tam settlements funding government services across the Commonwealth? Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell announced this week that Virginia has a budget-surplus for FY 2013 in excess of $585 million. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, that puts Virginia in a select group of states indeed.
And no, this is not as a result of federal aid the way some big-government interest groups have claimed. You see, Virginia’s surplus poses a true conundrum for those folks who truly believe in trickle-down government, because states that follow the trickle down government model are for the most part posting record deficits while Virginia posts a surplus. This is not the result of federal aid in part because unspent cash in government accounts accounted for $320.7 million, or 54 percent, of the final surplus for the fiscal year that ended June 30.
Moreover, as covered in my last post, Virginia’s qui tam settlements have returned $68 million to the General Fund in the last four and a half years, and that is just the money to the General Fund and then just from health care cases. Tens of millions of dollars more has gone into other governmental operations and accounts, and the overall effect of that money becomes difficult to trace.
And yes, despite this hard data, some states still do not have state level false claims act laws with qui tam provisions…but we are all working on that folks…stay tuned.
