An Act to amend and reenact § 44-146.19 of the Code of Virginia, relating to military and emergency laws; local emergency management plans.
HB347 amends Virginia’s emergency management law governing political subdivisions and local emergency management plans. The bill keeps in place the existing framework requiring each locality to maintain an emergency management agency and designate local emergency management leadership, and it preserves local authority to act during a declared state of emergency under the Governor’s supervision. It also continues the ability of local governments to enter contracts, incur obligations, and bypass ordinary procedural formalities when responding to disasters, subject to constitutional limits.
The bill’s most notable substantive change is in the planning requirements for local and interjurisdictional emergency operations plans. It requires those plans to include a provision that the Department of Criminal Justice Services and the Virginia Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund be contacted immediately to deploy assistance when an emergency involves victims as defined in § 19.2-11.01. The two agencies are designated as the lead coordinating agencies for those victims, and local plans must include current contact information for both agencies. The bill also retains the existing requirement that local emergency organizations prepare and keep current their plans and establish a chain of command.
HB347 amends § 44-146.19 of the Code of Virginia, affecting local emergency management duties across all political subdivisions in the Commonwealth. It adds a specific victim-services coordination requirement to local and interjurisdictional emergency operations plans, tying emergency response planning more directly to criminal justice victim assistance resources. Local governments, emergency management agencies, and emergency planners must ensure their plans reflect the new contact and coordination obligations, while the Department of Criminal Justice Services and the Virginia Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund become formal participants in emergency response planning for incidents involving victims.
The available record shows no committee transcript, recorded debate, or vote breakdown, so there is no documented opposition or support to measure directly. Based on the bill’s content, the measure appears administrative and coordination-focused rather than controversial, and it likely would have been viewed as a technical update to improve emergency response planning and victim assistance coordination. The bill was enacted as Chapter 116 and approved on April 6, 2026, indicating it advanced successfully through the legislative process.
No specific points of contention are documented in the provided materials. The main policy issue implicit in the bill is whether local emergency plans should be required to incorporate state victim-assistance agencies and maintain updated contact information for them. Any concern would likely center on added planning obligations for localities versus the benefit of faster coordination for victims during emergencies, but no named legislators, localities, or stakeholder groups are identified in the record.