Category Archives: Finance (government)

Dionysian Rites at a Spotsylvania County School Board Meeting

Posted on April 6, 2023 by | 24 comments

Dionysos, god of the theater and of the grape harvest

by James C. Sherlock

The FY 2023 budget for Spotsylvania County was $341,355,792.

In increasing the 2022 budget, the Supervisors transferred an additional $5.8 million to schools to “Address the Commitment to Educational Opportunities.”

That brought the total transfer to schools to $138,081,416 including that $5.8 million (4.4%) increase.

It was pointed out offhandedly in that FY 2023 budget document that $5.65 million equated “to a little more than three pennies on the real estate tax rate.”

Furthermore:

Most recently in FY 2021, the Schools were allocated ARPA funding in the amount of $22.68 million which Schools’ staff expects to be spent over three fiscal years (FY 2022, FY 2023, and FY 2024) to enhance the learning environment, enhance instructional planning, and enhance learning and growth.

But never mind.

Last night, in what Fox5 described as a “chaotic and disruptive” school board meeting, teeth were reportedly gnashed and garments rent over a potential, not yet an actual, reduction of $5.2 million in state funding for Spotsylvania County schools in FY 2024.

There were lots of interruptions and disagreement between the audience and school board members.

The festival at the school board meeting had an ancient Greek tone to it. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Education (K-12), Finance (government), General Assembly

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Langley Looks to the Moon

Posted on April 4, 2023 by | 16 comments

by Robin Beres

While mainstream media may be transfixed by the gutter politics going on in New York, exciting, uplifting events are happening in other parts of the nation — including in our very own little city of Hampton.

Located on Hampton’s Langley Air Force Base just off the Chesapeake Bay, the Langley Research Center is NASA’s oldest field center. Established in 1917, the 764-acre facility consists of nearly 200 separate facilities and employs around 3,400 civil servants and contractors.

In the early 1960s Langley was a top contender to be named NASA’s Mission Control Center for manned space flights. But because the Hampton facility was so close to Washington, and Hampton Roads was already home to both military and civilian aerospace and aviation communities, NASA selected Johnson Space Center in Houston over Langley.

Although missing out on the Manned Spacecraft Center, Langley has nonetheless continued to play a vital role in the research and training that has made every space mission from Gemini I to Artemis successful. The historic research facility has had countless scientific breakthroughs and historic firsts. The first crews of astronauts were trained there. Langley’s Rendezvous and Docking Simulator trained both Gemini and Apollo astronauts. It is where the Apollo Lunar Module was tested.

Scientists at the center were instrumental in the development of supersonic flight. Researchers there created the world’s first transonic wind tunnel and developed today’s international standard for grooved airport runways. And, if you saw the fabulous — and true — movie, Hidden Figures, you know that those incredible women worked at Langley.

Today, Langley is very much involved in NASA’s plans to put humans on the moon — and eventually on Mars. The space agency’s Moon to Mars program is no longer just a dream or a science fiction story in Popular Mechanics. The Artemis space program is moving rapidly forward on several goals which include putting a base on the moon and eventually landing humans on Mars.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Business and Economy, Economic development, Finance (government), Labor & workforce, Science & Technology, Uncategorized

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Virginia Municipal Bond Issuers Face Higher Costs for Borrowing

Posted on April 3, 2023 by | Leave a comment

by James C. Sherlock

People learn — and relearn- – things over time about investing.

One of the things they have learned over the past three years about investing in municipal bonds, as with all bonds, is that, having experienced the effects of inflation risk for the first time in decades, they will want a higher coupon next time.

Issuing new ones, especially revenue bonds, is likely to prove significantly more expensive than in the past few decades.

Tough market.

That chart is a little tough to read, but it shows that the annualized return on Virginia municipal bonds over the past three-year period is 0.17%.

Total return, tax adjusted, was down 7.36% in calendar year 2022.  If you were a seller, the market price was down 36%.

Using the muni market to fund local government projects and even non-governmental projects like hospital expansions that have access to the muni market will be more expensive, at least for a while.

So, of course, will labor, land, construction-equipment leasing, and construction products and materials.

Reflecting the higher costs to issuers, U.S. municipal securities issuance dropped 20%, from $483 billion in FY 21 to $387 billion in FY 22, while trading volume, reflecting nervous investors, nearly doubled over the same period. Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Finance (government)

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RVA 5×5: RVA = DIY

Posted on March 4, 2023 by | 5 comments

by Jon Baliles

Jack Jacobs at Richmond Biz Sense has an update about the ongoing fallout from the collapse of the Enrichmond Foundation last summer. All of the small organizations that used Enrichmond as a fiduciary lost access to their money (which may be gone for good; stay tuned) and other things like insurance coverage.

While there are efforts underway to transfer two historically Black cemeteries formerly under Enrichmond’s purview to the city, there has not been any statement, hint, clue, concern, or any sign of emotion uttered by the Mayor about when or if the city will help restore the funding of these small groups that do a lot of valuable work to help the City and save staff time.

Since no one at City Hall seems to be interested in helping, Richmonders are doing what they do best — they are doing it themselves (aka DIY).

For example, the group RVA Clean Sweep counts nearly 1,500 people who support it by going around the city picking up trash. They lost their insurance coverage and about $3,000 when Enrichmond folded. Have they quit trying to help clean up the city? Nope.

They held fewer cleanups and told volunteers to be extra careful as they were volunteering without insurance, but they still kept cleaning and sweeping. But no insurance means they were not able to apply for grants or hold as many cleanups as they would like, according to RVA Clean Sweep Director Amy Robins.

But they still held cleanups because they wanted their volunteers to stay engaged. “Robins feared that a prolonged hiatus on activity would cause volunteers to drift away from the cause of cleaning up litter in the city,” wrote Jacobs.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Charity and philanthropy, Economic development, Efficiency in government, Environment, Finance (government), Leadership, Planning, Uncategorized, Volunteering

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Public Hearing, Private Decision

Posted on March 1, 2023 by | 14 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

The Bluestone Town Center (BTC), according to council members who voted 3-2 to approve it, was decided in secret meetings between those council members and the applicants. At Tuesday’s open meeting in which they voted to approve BTC, those council members rather shamelessly admitted to those sessions.

City staff and the city manager effectively sat on their hands during the discussion, which brought questionable numbers and questionable rhetoric from rookie council members Dany Fleming and Monica Robinson, respectively. It was left to Councilman Chris Jones and Mayor Deanna Reed to present the arguments against the development with an assist from City Attorney Chris Brown.

The city manager was mostly silent throughout the conversation.

Also mostly silent was Councilwoman Laura Dent. She made the motion to grant the rezoning BTC sought, and followed the motion with a rambling explanation of what she seemed to say was one of the best things about the project for her, the promise of solar energy panels. Her motion effectively released the developers from their legally binding proffer to provide the panels, but she said she believed they would be installed anyway based on her private discussions with the developers. Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Economic development, Finance (government), Governance, Housing, Land use & development, Open Government, Uncategorized

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Richmond’s Skinny Budget: Low Stakes Poker, High Stakes Rhetoric

Posted on February 27, 2023 by | 9 comments

by Shaun Kenney

Virginia’s General Assembly managed to pass the Richmond equivalent of a continuing resolution to fund the government until Senate Democrats and House Republicans can hammer out a compromise on corporate tax breaks.

One will have to pardon me for not getting terribly wound up about tax breaks for corporations while small businesses and working families are struggling with back-to-back  years of 9 percent inflation from Washington.

Meanwhile, much of the damage done by the Northam administration with regard to Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirements, gender ideology, and the long litany of progressive efforts to remake Virginia were left both untouched and unchallenged.

Even school choice — the marquee legislation championed by Lt. Governor Winsome Sears — was left to die in committee.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are promising a “brick wall” against House Republicans until they get what they want — in other words, reneging on the pledge from conferees to honor a $950 million tax cut. The stopgap fixes the $200 million shortfall snafu created by the Virginia Department of Education’s spreadsheet, puts another $25 million into the Virginia Retirement System, and another $100 million towards cost overruns for existing building infrastructure. What mystifies most is that the Senate Democrats haven’t been precisely clear on what they want beyond platitudes for higher salaries for bureaucrats, public education, higher education, etc. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Culture wars, Efficiency in government, Elections, Finance (government), General Assembly, Governance, Government workers and pensions, Leadership, Taxes, Uncategorized

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Latest Debt and Deficit Projections Warrant a Full-Scale Freakout

Posted on February 16, 2023 by | 156 comments

by James A. Bacon

The latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicate that, given continuation of current levels of taxation and programmatic spending, the U.S. budget deficit will be running at $2.3 trillion a year by 2033, driven in large part by a $1 trillion-a-year increase in interest payments on the national debt to $1.4 trillion a year.

As it happens, 2033 is just a couple of years away from 2035, the year that Social Security’s Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund is scheduled to run out of money and the payout will be limited to what the program brings in from payroll taxes, limiting the payout to 77% of what was promised.

What’s the most likely scenario in the early 2030s? Congress will borrow to sustain the full Social Security payments, adding to the deficit and accelerating growth in the national debt. This year the deficit will be about 4.3% of gross domestic product. By 2033, it will be 7.3% — and that’s before a Social Security bailout. Interest on the national debt, which cannot be cut without triggering a default, will amount to 3.6% of the entire economy. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Finance (government)

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Top Three Financial Takeaways from RVA

Posted on February 13, 2023 by | 1 comment

Nothing but blue skies over Richmond? Not yet.

by Jon Baliles

Last week Richmond’s Mayor and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) reported to City Council that the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) was completed and had been turned in to the Virginia Auditor of Accounts. The report was due in mid-December, but better late than never I guess (and still it was way earlier than Mayor Jones, who tuned them in super-late three years in a row).

The external auditor called in virtually for the brief presentation to Council and went over their firms’ processes and evaluation methods (video starts at 1:03:30 mark) but never referred to any numbers or conclusions; she pointed out that certain figures could be found with corresponding footnote numbers in the report, which Councilors did not have.

After the auditor finished her brief presentation, Councilwoman Jordan had to inquire as to what figures the external auditor was talking about and where could she see them (at the 1:11:25 mark of the video) because the Council did not have the audit report in front of them so they could ask questions. The auditor told her they disclosed what they were required to and that she would be happy to go into the numbers. That’s when CAO Saunders stepped in and told Council the reports had been delivered to each Councilor’s office on Friday. Talk about collaboration and communication.

Councilwoman Lynch also asked the external auditor for the “Top 3 bullet points or risks” from the audit. Continue reading →

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Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – Big Complications and Major Changes

Posted on February 9, 2023 by | 19 comments

Credit JAMA Pediatrics, April 6, 2020

by James C. Sherlock

Rebecca Aman, a member of the Newport News School Board, is frustrated. She told me in an interview that:

Without sufficient discipline and access to clinical mental health services, behavioral intervention does not work to make schools safer and healthier.

She believes that Newport News schools need to improve both discipline and the effectiveness of behavioral interventions.

She is absolutely right.

But school-based mental health services offer different, very complex and rapidly changing challenges.

The profession of psychology has recognized that the one-on-one clinical treatment model is permanently out of reach for the broad communities needing assistance because the supply of qualified professionals cannot now and will never meet the demand.

So the delivery model is in the midst of profound change.

Three key changes being pursued are

  • a far bigger emphasis on prevention, much of it to be delivered by school staff;
  • better diagnosis; and
  • “school based” (their term) group treatments.

Which raises at least three questions:

  • Are the pediatric mental health delivery models changing so much that the schools are “shooting behind the rabbit” in the hunt for more services?
  • What does the profession of psychology mean when it describes massively expanded “school-based” services? The schools and parents better find out.
  • Should schools even be in the hunt for more in-school services? I say no. They are already trying to do too much.

Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education - Early Childhood, Education (K-12), Efficiency in government, Finance (government), General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Health Care, Mental illness and substance abuse, Psychology, Social services

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Focus on the Standard Deduction, QBI Deduction

Posted on February 8, 2023 by | 12 comments

We tried to tell everyone. Indexing the tax code for inflation is wildly popular, but it’s not in the pending package.

We have seen this before in Virginia and here we go again: the classic conflict between tax cuts for the many versus more government spending for a few.

The Republican-dominated House of Delegates has passed a series of broad tax reductions, while the Democratic-dominated Virginia Senate has killed its versions of the same bills.  Last Sunday the Senate then produced a budget proposal about $1 billion richer in funds for education, mental health services and other poll-tested priorities.

Killing the tax bills creates even more revenue to spend in future years, billions more. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Business and Economy, Finance (government), General Assembly, Taxes

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Will McDonald’s Be Leaving Virginia? Not This year, But…

Posted on February 3, 2023 by | 40 comments

by Chris Saxman

I wish the headline of today’s column was just click bait. It originates from a headline that was pushed across my phone that read “Will McDonald’s be leaving California?”

That immediately made me think that McDonald’s corporate offices might be considering moving their headquarters from California to another state. Given the exodus of companies that have left the Golden State it would be just another news story about another company leaving California.

Quickly remembering that McDonald’s was based in Chicago, not California, I clicked on the article. The president of McDonald’s USA, John Erlinger, had written an open letter dated January 25th in which he lamented the legislative and regulatory reality of California:

Last fall, the legislature passed a bill – AB257, or the FAST Act – almost entirely at the behest of organized labor’s firm grip on many of the state’s lawmakers. It makes it all but impossible to run small business restaurants, but the impacts are far beyond that. Under the FAST Act, an unelected council of political insiders, not local business owners and their teams, would make big decisions about crucial elements of running a business, fracturing the economy in the process. [Emphasis added.]

Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, Economic development, Elections, Entrepreneurialism, Finance (government), Labor & workforce, Regulation, Taxes, Uncategorized

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RVA 5×5: State of The City – What The People Think

Posted on January 31, 2023 by | 2 comments

by Jon Baliles

There is a little-known part of Richmond’s City Code that requires the City Auditor to produce a “Services, Efforts, and Accomplishments” (SEA) Report by conducting a thorough poll/survey of Richmond residents to see what they think about the level of service and performance and deliverability of City government. In other words, it’s the poll that every politician fears more than anything because they can’t B.S. their way past the peoples’ opinions of what they see and experience every day.

Doug Wilder used to say (and still does), “The people are always ahead of the politicians,” and that is never more accurate than with the SEA report presented by the Auditor in February 2022. It received virtually zero attention, but that’s usually what happens with bad news. You try and bury it, label it fake news, or quickly move on to something else.

SEA reports include questions like: Are you satisfied with the overall direction of the City? What is your opinion of the value of services for the taxes paid to Richmond? Does the City do a good job informing residents about issues facing the community? Is the City open and transparent with the public?

The reason this 2022 report is relevant 11 months after it was issued is that tonight, Mayor Levar Stoney will deliver his penultimate State of the City speech that will undoubtedly be an upbeat recitation of his accomplishments and how great the City is doing — in his eyes. His office put out this four-minute video a few weeks ago to tee-up the talking points and set the stage for his speech (and perhaps his next campaign). Continue reading →

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Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Central planning, Economic development, Efficiency in government, Finance (government), Governance, Government Oversight, Leadership, Uncategorized

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Governor’s Plan to Bolster Law Enforcement Is Meek Rather Than Bold

Posted on January 7, 2023 by | 17 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

In October, amidst much fanfare, Governor Youngkin announced Operation Bold Blue Line.  In the words of the Governor’s press release, this initiative is “a series of concrete actions to reduce homicides, shootings, and violent crime.”

I had some questions and wanted some details on the proposal.  I posed these questions to the Governor’s press office.  Crickets.  I then posed them to the office of the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security.  I got an acknowledgement and a pledge to provide the information I had requested.  Time marched on and no answers, just requests for more time to prepare the response.  Finally, I was told that my inquiry was being bumped to the Governor’s press office.  Fortunately, someone in that office did respond and answer my questions.

After doing some research and reading the responses to my questions, I have to say that I am underwhelmed by this initiative. Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Finance (government), Law enforcement

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A Conservative Fiscal Proposal

Posted on December 26, 2022 by | 130 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Governor Youngkin has proposed tax reductions that would reduce state revenue by about $1 billion in this biennium.

I have an alternative proposal on how to use that billion dollars, one that should appeal to the instincts of conservatives on this blog—reduce the Commonwealth’s outstanding debt balance.

The Debt Capacity Advisory Committee has reported that, as of June 30, 2022, the Commonwealth had a balance of $4.0 billion in authorized but unissued tax-supported debt. Using the $1 billion in general fund revenue that Youngkin proposes to forego in the form of tax reductions to supplant bond authorizations for capital projects instead would save the Commonwealth a significant amount in interest payments over the course of the term for which those bonds are now authorized. I do not have all the data needed to project the savings, but it could easily be several hundred million dollars over the course of 20 years.

Financial advisors often urge individuals to pay down debt balances whenever possible. It seems that would be a prudent move for the state as well.

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Posted in Budgets, Finance (government)

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Whiplash on Virginia’s Economy

Posted on December 1, 2022 by | 29 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

“Our beloved Commonwealth is in a ditch.” Glenn Youngkin, May 7, 2021.also see here.

“The commonwealth has never been in a stronger financial condition.” Glenn Youngkin, Nov. 21, 2022

29 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Finance (government), Politics

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