Tracking budget amendments.
When legislators request money for their districts, that doesn’t come in the form of a bill — it’s just an amendment to the monolithic budget bill introduced in the House and Senate each year. Even Richmond Sunlight doesn’t track those requests, since they’re not bills. Fortunately, there’s a way to get this information. LIS provides this data for both chambers, listing each legislators’ appropriation requests. (Unfortunately, it’s in a really difficult-to-syndicate format, so I’ve had a tough time integrating it into Richmond Sunlight.) Also, the House Appropriations Committee provides budget allocation reports for every house district as PDFs. Anybody interested in our budget — and it is a budget year, after all — will want to keep an eye on these resources.
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