Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced three new hires in his administration Friday, including a new lottery director, chief transformation officer and tax commissioner.
Khalid Jones, a hedge fund founder, attorney and licensing firm partner, was appointed director of the Virginia Lottery, assuming the role previously held by Kelly Gee, who was named secretary of the commonwealth in August 2023. Tony R. Russell was appointed interim lottery director in September 2023. In addition to managing lottery ticket sales, the agency has oversight for the state’s casino industry.
Jones, who started as lottery director this month, according to his LinkedIn page, was previously a partner at All American Licensing, a sports and entertainment branding, marketing and licensing firm based in New York and Los Angeles, and before that, at The Koller Group and SourceRock Partners. He also served as general counsel for SourceRock and co-founded hedge fund Thrasher Funds, as well as serving as an associate at several law firms focusing on securities enforcement and intellectual property. Jones also helped start an esports team, Echo Fox, with NBA star Rick Fox that has since disbanded. He has degrees from Wake Forest University and Stanford University’s law school.
According to Youngkin’s announcement Friday, Jones “has become one of the nation’s experts in licensing consulting, providing legal and strategic advice to state and national lottery organizations, [and] providing the expertise to lead Virginia’s lottery system at a crucial time of growth and expansion.”
Robert Ward, the state’s new chief transformation officer, previously served as a real estate senior adviser to Youngkin since August 2023, and was president and CEO of Skanska USA Commercial Development from July 2017 to November 2022. Before that, he served as chief operating officer and executive vice president of the Swedish construction company’s multifamily and commercial real estate arm.
A Virginia Tech graduate, Ward was responsible for more than $4.5 billion in real estate assets across the United States at Skanska. He replaces Eric Moeller, the state’s first chief transformation officer, a job Youngkin created to improve efficiency and lower costs in state agencies soon after taking office in 2022. A former Kinsey & Co. efficiency expert, Moeller left the position in February, having made extensive changes at the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority and the Virginia Employment Commission.
According to a February story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond business leader Bob Sledd, co-founder of Performance Food Group, appeared poised to become the next CTO following Moeller’s departure and had become a senior adviser to Youngkin. However, he left that position less than a month later for undisclosed reasons, the RTD reported in March.
James Alex, a partner and principal at RSM who leads the assurance, tax and consulting firm’s U.S. tax policy section, replaces Craig M. Burns, who retired last month as the state’s tax commissioner after being appointed in 2010. Alex previously served as senior advisor to the assistant secretary for tax policy in the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2018 and 2019, and was employed at Ernst & Young in its national tax practice from 1995 to 2016. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and has two degrees from Georgetown Law School.
Virginia Beach developer and NFL Hall of Famer Bruce Smith is vying for the chance to develop a casino in Petersburg and has joined forces with Cordish Cos., the Baltimore-based entertainment company that has already made inroads in Virginia.
There’s just one obstacle facing Smith and other prospective developers, including Bally’s, Penn Entertainment, Rush Street Gaming and D.C.-based Warrenton Group: a piece of legislation awaiting action by the Virginia General Assembly. Virginia State Senate Bill 628 replaces Richmond with Petersburg in the state’s list of cities eligible to host a casino, clearing the way for a casino referendum to be held in Petersburg.
However, the House of Delegates added a reenactment clause to the bill’s wording at the last minute, which would require next year’s General Assembly to take up the bill and vote for it a second time before Petersburg can move forward with a referendum vote — a move that would delay the development of a casino there by at least a year.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin removed the reenactment clause and sent the bill back to the legislature, which will vote on his amended bills April 17. If the General Assembly leaves the bill as-is, Petersburg will likely hold a referendum this fall — and that’s what Smith hopes will happen. He says Petersburg is ready and needs the economic benefit of a casino sooner rather than later.
“Now’s not the time to play politics with the people of Petersburg,” Smith said this week in an interview with Virginia Business, directing his remarks toward House Speaker Don Scott. “They need this economic development opportunity — more so than any other city in the state of Virginia. This is a critical time. That is costing the city money [and] jobs, trying to alleviate the problems of food deserts [and] underfunded schools. We can’t allow folks to say one thing and do another. The time to act is now, and all we’re asking for is to … take the reenactment clause right out of the bill.”
The former defensive end for the Buffalo Bills and Virginia Tech Hokies plans to unveil details of his and Cordish’s casino proposal Sunday at the Petersburg Public Library. The proposed casino will be similar to a $1.4 billion development submitted in 2022 by Cordish and approved by Petersburg City Council in a nonbinding agreement — which became null and void because Petersburg did not receive legislative support to hold a casino referendum that year. Smith, who collaborated with Cordish on a failed Richmond casino proposal in 2021 but was not part of the 2022 Petersburg bid, said the new proposal is “similar, with some tweaks.”
While he will disclose more details Sunday, Smith said “the structure of the deal in itself” will be different. “I will discuss those details on Sunday at the town hall, and they will be groundbreaking — and I think it will be breaking news.” Smith said he became interested in working in Petersburg after a visit with other NFL all-stars a few years ago to a local school and seeing room for economic improvement.
As in the 2022 proposal, the Cordish resort would be built on 90 acres at the intersection of Wagner Road and Interstate 95, and the casino would be “just one component in this massive development,” Smith said, including a 3,000-seat theater among residential, office and retail buildings on the site. He says his team expects to create 7,500 jobs total, including construction jobs, and produce about $2.8 billion in economic impact for the city over the casino’s first 10 years in operation, according to a CNBC interview he gave about the venture this week.
Smith says that his status as a born-and-bred Virginian — having grown up in Norfolk, graduated from Virginia Tech and moved to Virginia Beach to start his real estate business — is a major point in his favor.
Bruce Smith Enterprises, based in Virginia Beach, has previously developed hotels in Washington, D.C., and Virginia Beach in partnership with Armada Hoffler, and Smith is involved in projects slated for Virginia Beach’s Rudee Loop and a 287-unit apartment complex in Norfolk.
He also says that his development team would focus on making sure there is robust local participation in the project, noting that in some majority Black cities that host casinos, participation from investors of color is minimal. “Historically, when opportunities for major developments have taken place, Virginians have either been shut out, or given such a small percentage, even in areas that are disenfranchised,” he said. Petersburg’s population is about 77% African American, Smith notes.
“First and foremost, this is about the citizens and the city of Petersburg, a city that has been ignored and disenfranchised for three generations, to be quite honest,” Smith said. “A city with historically high unemployment, poverty, food deserts [and] underfunded schools, just to name a few problems. This city needs this economic engine more than any other city. It’s time to put Virginians first.”
Meanwhile, the Smith-Cordish plan is not the only one under consideration; four other prospective developers have applied for consideration:
Bally’s is a major national player in the casino industry and has previously vied for the Danville casino (which Caesars Entertainment ultimately won), but according to news reports, the company also is struggling to raise capital for a new resort in Chicago;
Rush Street Gaming is the Chicago-based company that operates the Portsmouth Rivers Casino, the first permanent casino to open in Virginia;
Penn National Gaming is based in Hollywood, and its focus is on “community casinos,” as opposed to those based in Las Vegas and Atlantic City;
The Warrenton Group is a Washington, D.C.-based business developer that has an agreement with casino operator Delaware North, but the Warrenton Group itself is a new entrant to the casino industry.
Rendering of a proposed Petersburg casino from 2022 that is expected to be similar to the 2024 proposal. Image courtesy The Cordish Cos.
Cordish pitched a $600 million hotel and resort casino in 2021 in Richmond’s North Side that would have featured a live music hall, but ultimately a plan proposed by Urban One on the city’s South Side won approval from the city. Cordish also sued the City of Norfolk in 2021 for $100 million alleging the city government breached its contract with the company, in which Cordish said it agreed to develop the Waterside District in exchange for the exclusive right to develop and operate a casino in Norfolk — although at the time casinos were not yet legalized in Virginia.
Instead, Norfolk reached a deal with the Pamunkey Indian Tribe to develop the HeadWaters Resort & Casino with Tennessee billionaire investor Jon Yarbrough. Cordish’s lawsuit was dismissed by a Norfolk circuit court in 2022, and the state Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision last month, but there is still a possibility that another entity will take control of the long-delayed HeadWaters project.
According to an April 4 Virginian-Pilot story, Norfolk city leaders are considering the possibility of partnering with a developer other than the tribe and Yarbrough. Under the casino referendum passed by city voters in 2020, the development team is required to obtain a gaming license within five years, or by November 2025. To do so, developers needed to begin construction of the permanent casino by this spring, a casino spokesperson said previously. Smith said it’s possible that he and Cordish would enter the running if the city opens the field to other casino developers.
“If there’s an opportunity that exists in Norfolk, in my hometown, after we take care of Petersburg, we will certainly address that opportunity if it arises,” Smith said, while noting, “first and foremost, our focus is on Petersburg.”
Virginia Senate Democrats had a lot of criticism Tuesday for Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed reworking of the state’s 2024-26 budget but held back on saying whether they would vote yea or nay on his 233 amendments.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said late Tuesday afternoon that he and fellow legislators had not had time to read and fully digest Youngkin’s suggested amendments, which were posted late Monday to the state budget website and provided to lawmakers a few hours earlier. Surovell noted that in 15 years serving in the General Assembly that he has never seen a governor suggest so many amendments after the legislature has passed its amended budget.
“The governor’s amendments are supposed to be nips and tucks, not organ transplants,” Surovell said in an interview with Virginia Business. “We really haven’t had a chance to process it.”
After the governor releases his amendments, the legislature returns to Richmond to vote on each amendment, which require a simple majority of each chamber to succeed — a process that typically takes one day but could take up to the 10-day limit under the state’s constitution, during which the legislature must complete its business. All of this is out of the ordinary, Surovell said.
Surovell added that the governor had reached out to Democratic finance leaders Sen. Louise Lucas and Del. Luke Torian for their input on his changes, noting that was highly unusual too. “They explained to him that the way the process works, he’s supposed to make his amendments. We’re not supposed to have input in his amendments, and that’s the way every governor has operated for the 15 years I’ve served, and the same thing with Sen. Lucas,” Surovell said. “I’ve talked to prior governors. The governor needs to take responsibility for the amendments he wants to make.”
On Monday, Youngkin announced that he had made 233 amendments to the 2024-26 budget as passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Delegates and state Senate, as well as 11 changes to the 2022-24 state budget, including the removal of wording added by Democrats to require Virginia’s future participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a major priority for Democrats. However, Youngkin backed off from some of his priorities, including cutting personal income taxes.
Youngkin’s 2024-26 budget includes $21.2 billion in K-12 education spending, increases higher education spending by $1 billion and increases health and human resources spending by $3.2 billion. It also proposes a 3% teacher pay raise each year, caps college tuition increases at 3%, fully funds Virginia’s share of Metro’s operating shortfall, and provides toll relief in Hampton Roads and additional funding for Interstate 81, according to the governor’s presentation.
In the introduction to his budget amendments released Monday, Youngkin wrote, “The budget passed by the General Assembly eliminated over $850 million of my priority spending items in the introduced budget and $1 billion of tax relief; the Common Ground budget restores only $230 million of those priorities.”
In a news release Tuesday from the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus, Lucas blasted the amendments: “Gov. Youngkin’s so-called ‘common ground’ budget is a farce. As Senate Finance and Appropriations chair, I find his amendments to be shortsighted and not in the best interest of the commonwealth. His budget defies common sense and highlights a significant disconnect that cannot be overlooked.”
In a press gaggle held Monday, Surovell said that he has “a lot of questions” about the budget, particularly about one-time funds he says Youngkin is relying on to balance his budget, and whether all the amendments meet constitutional requirements. Also, Surovell said, “He did not explain in his presentation what he’s doing with the $2.4 billion revenue carry-forward from last year’s budget or the $800 million revenue reserve fund. … You don’t structurally balance a two-year budget by using one-time money in year one and then figuring it out later.”
Meanwhile, the governor vetoed a total 153 bills passed by the General Assembly, a single-year record for the state that exceeds the number of bills vetoed by any other modern Virginia governor in a four-year term. Among Monday’s vetoes was a measure that would have established a prescription drug affordability board to conduct a review on drug costs.
On Sunday, the Senate Democratic Caucus is expected to meet virtually and discuss their plans regarding Youngkin’s budget, Surovell said. The General Assembly returns to Richmond on April 17 to take up the amended budget, and the legislature must complete their work and vote on the budget within 10 days, according to the state Constitution.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Monday released a slate of 233 amendments to the state budget passed by the General Assembly — calling it an opportunity for “common ground.” However, his budget removes language that would mandate Virginia’s future participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which has been a high priority for Democrats.
It was not clear Monday afternoon whether Democratic legislators agreed with Youngkin’s amendments, and the Virginia Senate and House Democratic caucuses did not immediately release a response following the governor’s news conference Monday.
During his news conference, the Republican Youngkin specifically mentioned Del. Luke Torian and Sen. Louise Lucas, thanking the two Democratic legislative finance leaders for their work in passing a balanced budget on deadline, while noting that he disagreed with some of their priorities. He said that he intends to keep trying to find ways to give Virginians tax relief, while noting that there are no tax decreases — or new taxes — in his budget.
Youngkin also said that there will not be an increase in taxes on electricity bills from the RGGI — an indication that he has removed the state legislature’s addition of language requiring that Virginia participate in the initiative. During former Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration, Virginia joined the greenhouse gas initiative in 2021, but at the end of 2023 under Youngkin, Virginia stopped participating in RGGI, after the state’s Air Pollution Control Board voted to repeal the Northam-era legislation. The legislature’s budget amendments passed in March would have brought the state back into the RGGI.
“I will propose today that we do not fight over tax decreases, but we also recognize it’s not time nor will it ever be for tax increases,” Youngkin said during his remarks. “I believe that’s the first place where we come together and find common ground. It’s structurally balanced, and it can be delivered on time.”
Youngkin’s 2024-26 budget includes $21.2 billion in K-12 education spending, increases higher education spending by $1 billion and increases health and human resources spending by $3.2 billion. It also proposes a 3% teacher pay raise each year, caps college tuition increases at 3%, fully funds Virginia’s share of Metro’s operating shortfall, and provides toll relief in Hampton Roads and additional funding for Interstate 81, according to the governor’s presentation.
Youngkin had called for personal income tax cuts, an increase in the state sales tax, and an extension of the sales tax to digital downloads. However, Democratic legislators removed all of the recommended tax cuts in its amended budget, as well as the sales tax bump, while agreeing to extend the sales tax to digital goods — including consumer purchases and business purchases.
With Youngkin’s new amendments announced, the ball is now in the Virginia legislature’s court. The Virginia State Senate and the House of Delegates must either vote to pass the governor’s amended budget as-is, or vote to reject it — thus leaving the state without a 2024-26 budget unless both sides can come to an agreement by June 30, when the fiscal year ends. The Democratic-controlled legislature returns to Richmond on April 17 to take up the newly amended budget.
Youngkin vetoed a record number of bills this session — 113 bills as of noon Monday — and hadn’t ruled out vetoing the full budget, according to a Washington Post article Saturday. Youngkin pledged after the 2023 elections — in which Democrats gained control of the Virginia State Senate and the House of Delegates — that he would focus on compromising and collaborating with Democrats.
However, relations between the parties soured quickly after the governor announced a $2 billion proposed Alexandria sports arena and entertainment district in December without negotiating with Democratic leadership. During the General Assembly’s regular session, state Sen. Louise Lucas, the powerful chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, prevented committee votes on the House of Delegates and Senate versions of the legislation, halting its progress to a Senate floor vote needed to create a state authority to manage the project.
Ultimately, Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis reached a deal with Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser to keep the Washington Wizards and Capitals in the District through 2050. At that point, Youngkin had no reason to negotiate with Democrats and vetoed legislation that would have set a $15 per hour minimum wage beginning in 2026 and a measure that would have established a retail market structure for recreational marijuana sales by next year — both Democratic priorities.
The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus will host a news conference Tuesday in Richmond in which Lucas and Torian are expected to discuss the governor’s amendments to the budget.
Virginia Beach-born-and-bred entertainment superstar Pharrell Williams will film a movie this spring and summer in Virginia based on his childhood, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Friday.
There had been rumors about the musical film project, called “Atlantis” in movie trade publications recently, but Youngkin confirmed the feature is being made in Central Virginia and Hampton Roads, and will be co-produced by Williams.
According to its IMDB page, the movie will be directed by Academy Award winner Michel Gondry and include among its stars Halle Bailey, Kelvin Harrison Jr., 2024 Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Portsmouth-born Grammy winner Missy Elliott, Grammy winner André 3000 and Mary J. Blige, a two-time Oscar nominee and Grammy winner. Williams is not expected to appear in the Universal movie.
Bailey, a Grammy nominee, starred as Ariel in Disney’s 2023 live-action musical “The Little Mermaid,” and Harrison played B.B. King in the 2022 “Elvis” biopic and starred in “Chevalier” the same year. Gondry won an Oscar as co-writer of the original screenplay for 2004’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” which he also directed, and he started his filmmaking career by directing music videos for many artists, including the Chemical Brothers, the White Stripes and Bjork.
Gil Netter, Mimi Valdés and Williams will produce “Atlantis” through their respective companies, Gil Netter Productions and I Am Other, Williams’ umbrella company for his creative endeavors, including music, film and the Billionaire Boys Club clothing line. The script for “Atlantis” was written by Martin Hynes, scriptwriter for “Toy Story 4,” and Steven Levenson, a Tony winner who wrote the script for the 2021 musical drama film “Tick, Tick…Boom!”
Williams grew up in the Virginia Beach housing project known as Atlantis Apartments, and the film is set in a neighborhood inspired by Atlantis in summer 1977, although it’s a fictionalized account based on the 51-year-old Williams’ life, according to the governor’s office.
“This high-profile project will place a global spotlight on Virginia as both an incomparable place to visit and as a preferred destination for investment from this growing industry,” Youngkin said in a statement. “The project will provide high-wage jobs, help retain our trained [film] production workforce, and deliver an immediate economic impact shared across a variety of sectors, from construction to hospitality. We warmly welcome Pharrell and the team behind this groundbreaking project to Virginia.”
In 2017, Entertainment Weekly and other publications reported that Williams would produce a musical based on his childhood, with Tony-winning director Michael Mayer set to direct the film, at the time a 20th Century Fox project. However, the pandemic and, later, the actors and writers’ strikes in 2023 led to delays for the project. Gondry has been developing the musical since 2022, and the Virginia Film Office has been working on the project for about six years, director Andy Edmunds said.
Virginia has hosted some high-profile film and TV projects in recent decades, including Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film “Lincoln,” the 2019 film “Harriet” and 2020’s “Wonder Woman 1984.” Television productions made in Virginia include the Hulu miniseries “Dopesick,” which starred Michael Keaton and was filmed in Richmond and Clifton Forge in 2021, Apple TV’s “Swagger,” a two-season drama based on NBA player Kevin Durant’s childhood and filmed in Richmond in 2021 and 2022, and AMC’s “The Walking Dead: World Beyond,” filmed in Richmond in 2019.
“Atlantis” will be eligible to receive a Virginia film tax credit or grant, according to the governor’s office. The exact amount will be based on the number of Virginia workers hired, goods and services purchased, and deliverables, including state tourism promotions.
The film announcement comes after a failed push to pass the “Lights, Camera, Jobs Act” through Virginia’s legislature this year. Sponsored by Del. Charniele L. Herring, D-Alexandria, and Sen. Ghazala F. Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, in the House of Delegates and the Virginia State Senate, the twin bills would have raised the state’s film incentives cap from $11.5 million a year to $46.5 million annually, but both measures stalled during the 2024 General Assembly session.
“We have essentially committed all allotted tax credits for work that has already occurred through 2026 … between ‘Dopesick,’ ‘Swagger,’ ‘Walking Dead,’ etc.,” Edmunds said Friday.
According to news reports, Virginia’s cap is considerably lower than other states’ incentives allowances, including neighboring Southern states. Georgia has no cap on film tax credits and certified more than $1.2 billion in credits in 2023, although legislators proposed a limit on tax incentives because they view them as a risk to state finances. However, the bill failed during its state legislative session. West Virginia also has no cap on film tax credits.
North Carolina’s annual cap is $31 million, and Kentucky’s is $75 million.
David O’Ferrall, business agent for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) union Local 487, which covers Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., said that “Atlantis” was expected to film last year in Virginia but was postponed because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which ended last fall. The longer lead time allowed “Atlantis” to qualify for state tax incentives before another project could lay claim to benefits, O’Ferrall said Friday. The amount of incentive “Atlantis” will receive is based on the production’s final spending in Virginia, Edmunds says.
O’Ferrall expects about 100 IATSE workers — many from Virginia — to be employed on the “Atlantis” set in behind-the-scenes roles like set design, sound and other technical jobs. Actors and writers are covered by the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, known collectively as SAG-AFTRA. According to O’Ferrall, IATSE workers on “Atlantis” will be paid between $33.93 and $41.12 an hour based on national standards, and higher rates if they work overtime.
Edmunds anticipates that the film will employ as many as 300 to 350 people in cast, crew and background artists, and will shoot around Central Virginia and Virginia Beach, although the filmmakers declined to disclose exact locations and dates.
Attorney Kelsey A. Bagot was sworn in Monday as the newest judge on the Virginia State Corporation Commission, filling its three-commissioner bench for the first time since March 2022.
The SCC’s panel was short two judges after the December 2022 resignation of Judge Judith Jagdmann, and nominations were held up by partisan politics. In March, Samuel T. Towell was sworn in as a judge, joining Judge Jehmal T. Hudson, the commission’s chair. Bagot, a former legal adviser with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who lives in Loudoun County, rounds out the panel with her swearing-in ceremony held Monday. Her six-year term is set to expire Jan. 31, 2030.
The SCC governs utilities, state-chartered financial institutions, securities, insurance, retail franchising and the Virginia Health Benefit Exchange.
Angela Navarro, the state’s former deputy secretary of commerce and trade, was appointed as a judge in January 2021, replacing Mark Christie, the former SCC chairman, who was appointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2020. However, Navarro left office in March 2022 after Republican state legislators declined to elect her to a full term, and the split General Assembly was unable to come to an agreement on a replacement for Navarro in 2022.
SCC judges are named by state legislators or, if they can’t agree on a candidate, the governor can name a commissioner on a temporary basis, although the state Senate and House of Delegates must elect a judge to a six-year term.
Bagot was most recently a senior attorney at NextEra Energy, and was legal adviser to Christie during his tenure at FERC. She also was an associate at Troutman Sanders and Van Ness Feldman, and earned degrees at American University and Harvard Law School. She’s the SCC’s 39th commissioner.
Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bankshares completed its acquisition Monday of Danville-based American National Bankshares, parent company of American National Bank and Trust. Based on the $35.31/share closing price Thursday of Atlantic Union common stock, the transaction value was approximately $507 million, according to Atlantic Union’s news release Monday.
The deal was announced in July 2023, and in February, the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors approved the acquisition, allowing the deal to close Monday. Under the terms of the merger, American National shareholders will receive 1.35 shares of Atlantic Union common stock in exchange for each share of American National common stock, with cash paid in lieu of partial shares.
Also, former American National board members Nancy Howell Agee and Joel R. Shepherd have been appointed to the boards of Atlantic Union Bankshares and Atlantic Union Bank.
“We are excited to have the American National team officially join Atlantic Union Bank,” John C. Asbury, president and CEO of Atlantic Union, said in a statement. “Together, our banks have more than 200 years of experience serving the needs of local communities throughout the mid-Atlantic region. We look forward to bringing new products and services to American National’s clients, and we believe this transaction will help enable us to deliver sustainable long-term shareholder value.”
According to Monday’s announcement, the combined bank has $24.3 billion in total assets, $19.4 billion in deposits and $17.9 billion in total loans, based on unadjusted records from Dec. 31, 2023.
Asbury said in February that he expected to close seven branches total, including American National’s office in Christiansburg, which is within line of sight of Atlantic Union’s branch. In Rocky Mount, Atlantic Union’s downtown branch office will close, but the combined bank will keep American National’s Rocky Mount branch open because it is more active. A drive-through teller office at the shuttered downtown location will stay open, Asbury said. Other branches that are being consolidated are in West Salem, Cave Spring, Lynchburg, Danville and Greensboro, North Carolina.
As of Monday, Atlantic Union has 135 branches and approximately 150 ATMs throughout Virginia and parts of Maryland and North Carolina.
The past four years have been rough on Liberty University’s reputation, judging by the sheer tonnage of negative press that the Lynchburg-based evangelical education powerhouse has received.
But with a $2 billion-plus endowment and one of the nation’s largest private, nonprofit college enrollments, Liberty appears to be not only surviving but thriving, even amid embarrassing media stories about its former president and chancellor, Jerry Falwell Jr., as well as far more serious allegations brought by 22 former students and employees who claimed in the 2021 “Jane Does” lawsuit that Liberty officials discouraged them from reporting sexual assaults to authorities.
In 2022, the university settled with all but two of the Jane Doe plaintiffs for an undisclosed amount, but there’s been further turmoil branching from the class-action suit and a 2021 ProPublica exposé in which some plaintiffs went public with their names and stories.
In March, the U.S. Department of Education settled with Liberty, imposing a record-shattering $14 million fine against the university and issuing a 108-page report detailing thousands of violations of the federal Clery Act, which governs the public reporting of criminal incidents on university campuses accepting federal financial assistance funding.
According to the investigation, Liberty either omitted or incorrectly reported 93% of all 3,673 criminal incidents that allegedly took place on university-owned property from 2016 to 2023. More than 1,400 reports of rape, aggravated assault, stalking, domestic violence, hate crimes and other, less serious crimes like liquor law arrests and burglaries were kept off police incident logs and away from the public eye. Liberty’s fine is nearly $10 million more than the DOE’s second-highest penalty, $4.5 million, assessed against Michigan State University in 2019 following its gymnastics sexual abuse scandal.
Financially speaking, $14 million is hardly a crippling blow to the well-resourced Liberty, but what about its reputation among evangelical Christians, including prospective students and faculty members?
Consistent growth
It’s still too soon to know what, if any, impact the U.S. Department of Education’s record penalty will have on Liberty’s application and enrollment numbers, but Provost Scott Hicks says the Jane Doe class-action lawsuit and Falwell Jr. scandals have not had a significant negative impact on Liberty’s growth.
By any business measure, the university remains a booming success, with the state’s largest enrollment this academic year — approximately 98,000 undergraduate and graduate students, including about 83,000 online enrollees, according to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). In fall 2023, Virginia’s headcount of all college students grew by 15,273, and Liberty alone was responsible for 5,255 of those students, or nearly 35% of that growth, according to Tod Massa, SCHEV’s policy analytics director.
In the 2022-23 academic year, Liberty accepted $879 million in federal student aid funds, a revenue stream that could be in jeopardy if the DOE determines Liberty hasn’t ceased violating the Clery Act.
But in terms of growth, “we’ve been pretty resilient,” Hicks says. “We either get it right or wrong, and just like any other company … we try to get it right and improve upon it.”
The word “company” is not a slip of the tongue, notes the provost, who was director of retail operations for Mansfield Oil Co. before joining Liberty as a professor in 2007, later becoming dean of its business school. With more than 8,000 local employees, Liberty is Lynchburg’s largest employer.
“We operate more like a business that you would see around the city or throughout the country, versus academia,” Hicks says. “Residentially, we do have chairs, and we have deans and things like that. We have subject-matter experts, we have program directors. …The professors are coming together to not only add value to the learning experience, but also they hold it accountable. So, when you look at the way that we’re structured operationally, it enables us to deliver the value that people would expect from the [Liberty] brand.”
Meanwhile, residential enrollment at Liberty remains steady at about 15,000 students, Hicks says, and he estimates the school’s total 2024 enrollment — including part-time, nondegree remote students — will reach between 138,000 to 140,000 by the end of the year. To teach those students and “train champions for Christ,” as its mission says, Liberty employs more than 4,500 faculty members, many of whom are based outside of Lynchburg and teach online classes.
By August or September, Hicks anticipates rolling out a strategic plan for online and residential education, in which he expects Liberty “to continue to grow and continue to build.” Two major areas of focus are cybersecurity and health care courses, which are in high demand.
Hicks says that although Liberty’s remote work is attractive to prospective educators, the school has to compete for professors who teach in-demand subjects — as well as making sure they’re on board with Liberty’s Christian ethos.
“Liberty is a very unusual academic institution, compared to most. We’re Christian,” he says. “And we’re predominantly conservative in our thinking. That doesn’t mean that every person here is a conservative thinker, and that’s OK. But they believe in a moral absolute, and for the most part, that’s what drives them.”
‘A giant facelift’
Dustin Wahl, too, thinks Liberty will continue growing, although he has a different take on that than university officials.
A 2018 Liberty graduate, Wahl co-founded alumni group Save71 in 2020 to advocate for reforms at his alma mater, including pushing for Falwell’s resignation and an overhaul of the university’s board of trustees.
“There’s a lot of people in Liberty’s administration that breathed a sigh of relief when [Dondi Costin] became president, because it’s like, ‘OK, we can kind of become normal,’” Wahl says.
A retired Air Force major general who was the branch’s chief of chaplains, Costin earned two degrees at Liberty and was most recently president of Charleston Southern University in South Carolina. In July 2023, he started as Liberty’s president.
Costin succeeds Jerry Prevo, Liberty’s former longtime board chairman, who stepped in as interim president after Falwell’s departure in August 2020 amid revelations of a sex scandal involving his wife, Becki Falwell, and an erstwhile Miami pool boy. Falwell has since sued Liberty twice in federal court, seeking $8.5 million in retirement compensation and to bar the university from using the name and likeness of his father, Liberty’s founder, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., for a new campus center. Liberty is suing the younger Falwell for $10 million in a breach of contract suit in Lynchburg Circuit Court.
“Liberty essentially got a giant facelift” with Costin’s appointment, Wahl says. “As a leader, Dondi Costin is dramatically different from Falwell and Prevo. He’s qualified to oversee a large academic institution. He has experience working within institutions. He’s way less prone to scandal.”
Also, the school’s increased prominence in Republican national politics and partisan culture wars, especially since Falwell’s January 2016 surprise endorsement of Donald Trump, has changed the character of the student body, making it less vulnerable to external slings and arrows, Wahl asserts.
“Christians who … aren’t really into politics and just kind of want to go to a Christian school, that group has shrunk, and more and more of them are not enrolling [at Liberty],” he says. “On the other side, you have more people from Trump country, and Liberty puts its ads on Fox News. That’s who they’re going for, so you have more of those people. They don’t care about what the Department of Education says. In terms of overall enrollment, I don’t think [the fine is] going to make a real impact.”
Although Falwell was careful to make the Trump endorsement on his own behalf and not the university’s, his post as president of Liberty caused some conflation between the two, Liberty General Counsel David Corry says. “I don’t think we stepped over a legal line [as a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) entity] … but there’s a heavy price to be paid for being so closely identified with a polarizing political figure like that.”
Prevo did not endorse a candidate in the 2020 presidential election, and Corry expects Costin to maintain the same course in 2024.
Nonetheless, Liberty still plays an outsize role in conservative political discourse. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio spoke at a Liberty convocation last October, and Costin has made several statements in support of Israel following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israeli civilians near the Gaza border.
After The Washington Post’s October 2023 story based on a leaked, preliminary version of the Clery Act report about Liberty, Costin chose to respond on Fox News.
DOE investigators, Costin said then, are “claiming that we acted in bad faith. I think there are a number of factual errors in the report … and [Liberty hasn’t] had the opportunity to respond in a way that would allow us, at least in a public setting, to counter these assertions that have been made with factual errors.”
Corry, Liberty’s general legal counsel since 2011, takes a similar rhetorical approach, highlighting the $10 million Liberty has spent on improved campus lighting and hiring more Title IX and Clery Act staff since 2022 — while also implying that politics may have played a role in the DOE investigation of the university.
U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, “bless their hearts, asked the Department of Ed. to come after us, and so the department started that Clery review,” Corry says.
Warner and Kaine, both Democrats, did in fact call for the DOE to investigate Liberty’s handling of sexual misconduct claims in November 2021 after ProPublica’s report came out, according to the senators’ offices.
In a statement following Liberty’s $14 million fine, Kaine and Warner called their investigation request “a reasonable step to ensure student safety. Liberty has entered into a voluntary settlement of the claims, and the senators expect that the terms will be honored by all parties.”
Liberty’s public statement in March also included some defiant words, alleging that the university “repeatedly endured selective and unfair treatment by the Department [of Education].”
But it also had notes of humility, as the university acknowledged “numerous deficiencies that existed in the past. We acknowledge and sincerely regret past program deficiencies and have since corrected these errors with great care and concern.” The statement concluded with a declaration: “It is a new day at Liberty University.”
Costin twice canceled scheduled interviews with Virginia Business for this article, and Liberty’s spokesman said he would not be available for an interview before the April 2024 issue’s print deadline.
Previously president of Charleston Southern University, Dondi Costin became Liberty’s sixth president in July 2023. Photo courtesy Liberty University
Moving forward
S. Daniel Carter, a Tennessee-based campus safety expert who helped craft the current version of the Clery Act established in 2015, says Liberty was not singled out over its evangelical Christian prominence or its conservative Republican Party affiliations.
“The people who conducted this [DOE] review are people I’ve worked with for decades,” he says. “They are not political appointees. They have, year in [and] year out, taken methodical steps to enforce the Clery Act at all kinds of institutions, including many smaller religious institutions, over the years.”
The DOE’s 2010 finding that Liberty was not reporting crime statistics appropriately — as cited in the 2024 report — and Liberty’s failure to implement a reporting system in the intervening years were much more relevant factors, Carter says.
If there is a religious influence on the Clery Act, he adds, it has to do with the school’s strict code of conduct, known as the Liberty Way, which forbids use of alcohol, requires modest dress and prohibits “sexual activity, inappropriate personal contact, any state of undress in inappropriate circumstances, or spending the night with a member of the opposite sex.”
Carter, who advised one of the Jane Doe plaintiffs, says he views the school’s code of conduct as “inextricably linked” with the sexual assault allegations made against former Liberty students and a senior administrator in the Jane Doe lawsuit and referred to in the DOE report. Some plaintiffs claimed that the school rules were “weaponized” against students who wished to report sexual assaults by leading them to believe they would get in trouble for violating the code of conduct.
“The Liberty Way,” Carter says, “was simply at odds with the Clery Act’s requirements. To the extent that there is any religious nexus, that’s it. The law is clear. The law does not allow a federally funded institution of higher education to … afford students and employees who report sexual misconduct any less protection than any other institution. And that’s what this report finds happened, and Liberty, as part of their settlement, does not contest that.”
Corry disputes the argument that the Liberty Way was used to discourage students from reporting sexual assaults, although he acknowledges that the school could have done more to educate students on the issue.
“People just weren’t getting the message that that isn’t the way we do business,” Corry says. “A lot of old rumors and old wives’ tales and old, ‘Hey, be careful, word to the wise’ stuff … gets passed down and accepted as truth. Lore can undermine your desire to have an open [sexual assault reporting] process, where people feel like they will be respected. It is trauma-informed. It is open, and we’re not going to play ‘gotcha’ with curfew violations and alcohol and drug violations when there’s much bigger, more serious things to be ferreted out, like rape and sexual assault, and people feeling unsafe.”
Wahl says that although he thinks Costin and other university officials have continued to deflect blame from Liberty, he’s still hopeful about Costin’s leadership. “I believe that Liberty is trending in a very positive direction, when it comes to policies and procedures and keeping students safe, and I think Costin is a part of that.”
And while the Falwell lawsuits linger, and Liberty must report to the DOE through April 2026 under the settlement, the school will keep focusing on expanding its degree offerings and creating Christian leaders, including in the secular world.
“We want leaders,” Hicks says. “We want you to be the best employee, then we want you to be the best leader, even to being the best … attorney or judge or politician or CEO. Whatever your role is, we just want you to do it in a way that honors God.”
At a glance
Founded The private, nondenominational, conservative Christian Liberty University was started by Jerry Falwell Sr. and Elmer Towns as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971, later named Liberty Baptist College and, finally, Liberty University in 1984.
Campus Liberty sits on a 7,000-acre campus in Lynchburg with more than 180 buildings and structures, including the 25,000-seat Williams Stadium and the 275-foot-high Freedom Tower. The Vines Center hosts twice-weekly convocations featuring national speakers that have included former President Donald Trump; former first lady Melania Trump; former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis and Bernie Sanders; former National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre; and comedian Jeff Foxworthy.
Enrollment 101,554 (Fall 2023)*
Student profile
Residential: 47% male, 53% female
Online: 41% male, 59% female
Academic programs
Liberty offers more than 700 total programs of study, with more than 600 available online and 350 on the Lynchburg campus. It has 15 colleges and schools, including the College of Osteopathic Medicine and the School of Law.
Faculty
Approximately 4,500 full- and part-time faculty, according to Provost Scott Hicks
Tuition, fees, housing and dining
Residential undergraduate tuition and fees: $23,800
Room and board: $12,920
Online undergraduate tuition: approximately $9,360 per year
*According to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, this number includes all residential and enrolled undergraduate, graduate and professional degree students. According to Liberty, total enrollment exceeds 135,000.
Dominion Energy announced Feb. 22 it had reached an agreement with investment firm Stonepeak to sell a 50% noncontrolling stake in the utility’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project for nearly $3 billion.
The deal is expected to close by the end of 2024, if approved by the Virginia State Corporation Commission and the North Carolina Utilities Commission, as well as federal regulatory agencies. Richmond-based Dominion would retain full operational control over the $9.8 billion CVOW project, which is under development 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast. The 176-turbine offshore wind farm received final federal approvals in January and is expected to begin construction in May.
“The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project continues to proceed on time and on budget and consistent with our previously communicated timing and cost expectations,” Dominion Chair, President and CEO Bob Blue said in a statement. “A competitive partnership process attracted high-quality interest, resulting in a compelling partner for CVOW.”
Under the deal, Dominion Energy expects to receive $3 billion — representing 50% of the offshore wind farm’s construction costs through the anticipated closing of the deal by Dec. 31, minus $145 million, the initial withholding amount. If total construction costs remain at the current budget of $9.8 billion or less, excluding financing costs, Dominion will get back $100 million from the withholding amount.
However, if construction costs more than $11.3 billion, the Fortune 500 utility will receive no money back from the withheld $145 million. If the project costs reach $11.3 billion, Stonepeak and Dominion would each contribute 50% of additional capital costs needed to fund construction, but if the project costs between $11.3 billion and $13.7 billion, Stonepeak would not be required to contribute more capital to pay the additional costs, although it has the option to do so.
In terms of structure, Stonepeak would invest in a newly formed Virginia-based utility subsidiary of Dominion Energy Virginia. The transaction is expected to improve Dominion’s estimated 2024 consolidated funds from operations-to-debt ratio by approximately 1% and reduce the utility’s overall financing needs during construction.
In September 2023, Dominion said it intended to sell a noncontrolling interest in the CVOW to lower risk in the project and solidify the company’s balance sheet. In November 2023, Dominion officials said during its third-quarter earnings call that the utility was in the advanced stages of finding a co-investor.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed legislation Thursday that would have put Virginia on the path to a $15 per hour minimum wage and set up a retail cannabis market, killing bills that were important to Democratic state legislators he blamed for torpedoing the $2 billion Alexandria sports arena deal he’d championed.
Amid a deepening partisan divide in Richmond, Republican Youngkin announced six more vetoes Thursday evening, targeting legislation supported by Democratic lawmakers that would have set a $15 per hour minimum wage in Virginia beginning in 2026, as well as a measure that would have established a retail market structure for recreational marijuana sales beginning next year.
The vetoes were hardly a surprise to political observers across the state, as Youngkin had previously signaled his lack of support for a legal cannabis retail market, although legislators from both parties said before this year’s General Assembly session that they have problems with the status quo, in which it’s legal to possess small amounts of marijuana and purchase cannabis products with a doctor’s prescription in licensed dispensaries — and yet the billion-dollar recreational cannabis retail black market remains unregulated and untaxed.
HB 1 and its Virginia State Senate counterpart, SB 1, would have increased the state’s mandatory minimum wage from $12 an hour to $13.50 starting Jan. 1, 2025, and set a $15 per hour minimum wage at the start of 2026. The legislation passed through the General Assembly along party lines this session — with 51 Democrats voting yes, and 49 Republicans voting no in the House of Delegates, and 21-18 in the Senate, with Republican Sen. Mark Peake abstaining.
Youngkin wrote in his veto statement that raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour in less than two years “would implement drastic wage mandates, raise costs on families and small businesses, jeopardize jobs and fail to recognize regional economic differences across Virginia.” He had previously said there was no need for the state to raise the mandatory minimum wage, and that the free market was taking care of the issue.
The Virginia Chamber of Commerce applauded the minimum wage veto, saying in a statement Thursday, “Although Virginia’s economy has recovered strongly from the pandemic, surpassing pre-pandemic employment levels, not all regions of the commonwealth have experienced equal economic growth. Raising the hourly minimum wage to $15 would have led to shuttered businesses and lost jobs, particularly in the areas most in need of strong economic growth and particularly for Virginia’s small businesses.”
However, Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, tweeted Thursday evening that “every working American deserves a living wage. Period,” in reference to the minimum wage veto, and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, a Democrat who is running for his party’s nomination for governor, wrote that he has proposed raising city employees’ minimum wage to $20 an hour, adding, “It’s high time our governor stops playing political games and focuses on what our families need to rise to the middle class.”
Cannabis retail legislation
Cannabis bills HB 698 and SB 448 passed mostly along party lines too, although Republicans Del. Chris Obenshain and Sen. Christie New Craig joined Democrats in voting yes. If enacted, the measures would have established a framework to allow legal retail sales of recreational marijuana in Virginia starting May 1, 2025, and issued state licenses to sell marijuana on Sept. 1, 2024.
“The proposed legalization of retail marijuana in the commonwealth endangers Virginians’ health and safety,” Youngkin wrote in his veto statement on the cannabis legislation. “States following this path have seen adverse effects on children’s and adolescents’ health and safety, increased gang activity and violent crime, significant deterioration in mental health, decreased road safety, and significant costs associated with retail marijuana that far exceed tax revenue. It also does not eliminate the illegal black market sale of cannabis, nor guarantee product safety. Addressing the inconsistencies in enforcement and regulation in Virginia’s current laws does not justify expanding access to cannabis, following the failed paths of other states and endangering Virginians’ health and safety.”
The twin bills’ chief sponsors — Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, and Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax — blasted the governor’s veto in statements Thursday. “Gov. Youngkin’s dismissive stance towards addressing Virginia’s cannabis sales dilemma is unacceptable. Public servants are obligated to tackle pressing issues, regardless of their origin or culpability. They cannot cherry-pick which problems to address,” Rouse said, while Krizek said the governor’s “failure to act allows an already thriving cannabis market to persist, fueling criminal activity and endangering our communities.”
Thursday’s vetoes came after the legislative scuttling of a $2 billion deal to bring a proposed sports arena in Alexandria, a controversial deal touted by Youngkin as potentially producing 30,000 jobs for the state and billions in economic activity, while critics in the Virginia State Senate — led by Democratic Sen. Louise Lucas, who chairs the powerful Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee — balked at the idea of the state taking on approximately $1.3 billion in debt and establishing a state authority to manage the properties.
Although the deal was still considered alive — at least on paper — until the state’s 2024-26 budget is finalized in April, the Washington Wizards and Capitals’ majority owner, Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis, and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser signed an agreement Thursday that will keep the NBA and NHL teams in the District of Columbia through 2050, putting an end to all negotiations between Monumental, the state and the City of Alexandria.
The arena proposal, while not directly tied to cannabis and minimum wage legislation, became a partisan battleground as Youngkin indicated that he wouldn’t compromise with Democrats on either priority, despite needing their votes to establish the state authority to own the arena and entertainment district. Meanwhile, Lucas blocked Senate Finance Committee votes on legislation that would have created the authority, and the state legislature’s 2024-26 budget amendments dropped all mention of the authority.
In a news conference after the General Assembly’s regular session closed in March without a Senate vote on the arena authority, Youngkin said he didn’t “have any interest in the cannabis legislation. … Bluntly, you want to talk about putting a cannabis shop on every corner. I don’t quite get it.”
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