A year after closing a $4.2 billion budget gap, largely by chopping services like K-12 education and health care, Virginia lawmakers face a marginally brighter outlook as they prepare to gavel in the 2011 session of the General Assembly on Wednesday. Still, lawmakers agree that money — or lack of it — will define their 46-day session.

Following deep cuts that rolled state spending back to 2006 levels, legislators will spend the session revising the state’s budget through 2012 with a bit more breathing room, as the economy creeps forward and tax revenues recover.