Category Archives: Government workers and pensions

Causes of the School Funding “Crisis”

Posted on February 24, 2022 by | 19 comments

Courtesy Wise County Public Schools

by James C. Sherlock

Read the story, “House and Senate lay out dueling visions for education funding in Virginia,” in the Virginia Mercury this morning by the reliably thorough Kate Masters.

If you follow it, you, like everyone else in Virginia, can pick a side or pick provisions from both houses that you prefer.

What you won’t find in either budget version is an attempt to tackle the massive amounts of money that are wasted in plain sight. Much of the waste is attributable to faulty or non-existent assessments of need and misplaced local priorities.

The rest is traceable to the self-serving inputs of the schools of education, which have owned and operated the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) for years. Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Finance (government), General Assembly, Government workers and pensions

Tagged

“Frozen” Property Taxes

Posted on February 23, 2022 by | 19 comments

by James C. Sherlock

I admit my fascination with how newspapers present various issues. It is an important window into the information their readers are getting.

City manager and county executive proclamations that property tax rates are “frozen” are meant to sound like fiscal constraint. Consider this headline from The Washington Post:

“Fairfax County executive proposes budget with tax-rate freeze, less pandemic austerity”

First paragraph:

“Fairfax County Executive Bryan Hill proposed a budget Tuesday that would freeze the residential property tax rate while spending more on county services — part of a push to end fiscal austerity in Northern Virginia amid signs of economic stability”

End “fiscal austerity” in Fairfax County. Seriously?

“Hill was able to present a $4.85 billion spending plan that focuses on some key areas of growth for Virginia’s most populous jurisdiction while keeping the residential property tax rate at $1.14 per $100 of assessed value.”

Where do we get such men? Everybody wins, right? Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Finance (government), Governance, Government workers and pensions, Inflation, Taxes

Tagged

Bacon Bits: Public Servants in Action

Posted on January 13, 2022 by | 26 comments

Robert Bobb to the rescue. Robert C. Bobb, a former Richmond city manager turned public-sector turnaround artist, pulled the City of Petersburg back from the brink of bankruptcy. Now he will endeavor to manage the City of Charlottesville, which has been hobbled by racial tensions and interpersonal conflicts. After debilitating turnover in the administration — seven executive-level positions are vacant or filled by acting supervisors — City Council has hired the Robert Bobb Group to provide city manager services for the next six months, according to Virginia Public Radio.

Bobb salvaged Petersburg, but can he save Charlottesville? Petersburg suffered from simple incompetence. But the People’s Republic of Charlottesville is prone to militancy, ideological fracture, absolutist judgments and cancel culture. Bobb, who stabilized Detroit public schools, is an administrative superman. Will Charlottesville be his kryptonite? 

Faking DNA results to fake out suspects. The Virginia Beach Police Department used forged documents linking peoples’ DNA to crimes on at least five occasions to get them to confess, the Attorney General’s Office has found. The fake documents bore a seal and letterhead from the Virginia Department of Forensic Science and the signature of a fictitious employee, reports CBS News. In one instance, a forged report was presented to a court as evidence. After its own investigation, the VB police ended the practice earlier this year. “This was an extremely troubling and potentially unconstitutional tactic that abused the name of the Commonwealth to try to coerce confessions,” said AG Mark Herring. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Government workers and pensions, Scandals

Tagged

What’s the Matter with Charlottesville?

Posted on December 27, 2021 by | 55 comments

Charlottesville City Council. Photo credit: The Daily Progress

by James A. Bacon

In his bestselling book of 2007, Thomas Franks asked the question, What’s the Matter with Kansas? Why do blue-collar inhabitants of the Sunflower State, he wondered, so consistently vote for Republican politicians who pursue policies supposedly antithetical to their material self-interest? Perhaps the answer is that level-headed Kansans could see where the progressive policies of the Democratic Party would take them.

In Washington, D.C., progressive policies are diluted by our republic’s system of checks and balances. But there are places where the end game of progressivism has been revealed in all its unadulterated glory. One such place is San Francisco,  with its homeless encampments, open-air drug use, fecal-strewn streets, people lying passed out on sidewalks, flash-mob shoplifting, and shuttered stores.

Fortunately, Virginia has no analogue to San Francisco. That’s not for a lack of emulation. Progressives here just haven’t held the levers of power as long. But Virginians can get a close-up look of progressive political culture at work in Charlottesville. The home-town newspaper, The Daily Progress, has just published an analysis — “Charlottesville faces major challenges following mass departure of city leaders” — that might aptly have been headlined, “What’s the Matter with Charlottesville?” Continue reading →

55 Comments

Posted in Government workers and pensions, Politics

Tagged

Now EMT Workers Are in Short Supply

Posted on December 13, 2021 by | 12 comments

Image credit: News & Advance

by James A. Bacon

Bedford County, an 800-square-mile county in Central Virginia, is theoretically staffed to operate six medic units. Based on call volume, the county could justify maintaining eight units, reports the News & Advance. But on most days one or two of the six are out of service because of insufficient staff to fill them. One day recently, the county had only one paramedic on duty.

The result: longer response times. Delays are potentially a matter of life and death.

The likely root causes of EMT shortages are overwork and insufficient pay, although COVID-related disruptions to training programs have also been a factor in the past year. It is not uncommon for emergency services personnel to work more than 100 hours of overtime a month, sometimes in 72-hour shifts. EMT Jason Morgan says he has not seen a merit increase or cost of living increase since 2004 or 2005. Nationally, shortages are most acute among paramedics, who require more years of education and training.

The chronic teacher shortages in Virginia have gotten considerable media attention, as has the shortage of police officers. It should surprise no one that emergency service personnel are in short supply as well. Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in Government workers and pensions, Labor & workforce

Tagged

Bacon Bits: People’s Republic Update

Posted on December 8, 2021 by | 8 comments

How’s this for irony? The only thing saving the City Council of the People’s Republic of Charlottesville from increasing dysfunction in the future is dysfunctional governance today. City Council wants to draft an ordinance that would outline collective bargaining rights for employees, enabling them to negotiate for higher salaries and changes to working conditions — creating new spending pressures, new labor tensions and new areas for conflict. In August Council directed the city manager to research how much money would be needed to support the human resources department in such an endeavor. Trouble is, Charlottesville can’t hire a city manager. The announced interim city manager just resigned. And it turns out that City Hall has no human resources director either. So reports the Daily Progress.

The cultural cleansing shall continue. City Council has approved the sale of Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue to a group that will melt it down and turn it into new artwork. After the city took down the statue of the Confederate hero over the summer, it received six proposals from arts groups, historical societies and individuals” with offers up to $50,000 for the bronze sculpture, reports The Washington Post. City Council chose instead to give the statue to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to advance a project to “allow Charlottesville to contend with its racist past.” I’ve only got one question: If the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center is so distraught about the racism embodied in statues and memorials, why is it still named the Jefferson School?

The no-solar solar capital. No part of Virginia outdoes the People’s Republic when it comes to enthusiasm for renewable energy, at least in the abstract. Charlottesville and Albemarle County are home to numerous renewable energy companies — Sun Tribe, Hexagon Energy and Apex Energy among them, not to mention the Clean Virginia pro-renewables advocacy group. Charlottesville/ Albemarle is an ideal location for solar projects in at least one way: proximity to high-capacity electric transmission lines. But the Department of Environmental Quality’s “environmental data mapper” shows only two utility-scale solar projects in Albemarle — and neither are producing. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Government workers and pensions

Tagged ,

Bill LaVecchia: Model Public Servant

Posted on November 24, 2021 by | 1 comment

Bill LaVecchia

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Bill LaVecchia died recently at the age of 95. He was an example of the best in professional public employees.

He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. He earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Virginia Tech, and, subsequently,  a master’s in municipal engineering and public administration, as well. After working in municipal government in Tennessee and the town of Blacksburg, he was hired as Henrico County’s second planning administrator in 1959. He was to be an integral part of the management team that guided Henrico County over several decades from a largely rural county to one of the state’s large urban counties. His career culminated as county manager from 1984 until his retirement in 1992.

One of his most consequential actions occurred soon after he came to work for Henrico. He persuaded his boss, county manager Ed Beck, to attend hearings on the location of then-planned Interstate 64. They were the only administrators from the region attending and were ultimately successful in lobbying for a northern route for I-64 that brought it through Henrico.

Bill’s was not a household name, nor did it appear a lot in print. He probably preferred it that way. He was content to let others take on the public roles.

In addition to being a highly competent professional, more importantly, he was a genuinely nice person and had a humble air about him.

I was fortunate to have known and worked with him.

1 Comment

Posted in Government workers and pensions, Uncategorized

Tagged

Local Collective Bargaining Off to Slow Start

Posted on November 5, 2021 by | 37 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Although the alarm bells have sounded repeatedly on this blog, there has not been a rush to establish public employee bargaining in Virginia. Today, about a year and a half after the General Assembly enacted the authorizing law, and six months after it went into effect, only three jurisdictions have enacted ordinances authorizing collective bargaining, with another jurisdiction, Loudoun County, scheduled to vote on an ordinance on November 10, which seems likely to pass. In contrast, at least three jurisdictions have officially said “no” to collective bargaining.

Furthermore, none of the four collective bargaining ordinances, either adopted or pending to date, include teachers. School boards oversee the schools and will be the ones to consider collective bargaining by their employees, including teachers. So far, no local group of teachers has been authorized to engage in collective bargaining, nor has any group officially requested to do so.

The localities are all in Northern Virginia. In addition to the pending vote in Loudoun, the city of Alexandria and the counties of Fairfax and Arlington have approved a collective bargaining ordinance. One city, Portsmouth, went as far as to have an ordinance drafted by staff, but then backed away when it came to adopting it. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Government workers and pensions, Labor & workforce, Public employee unions, Unions

Tagged

Schools Desperately Short of Bus Drivers; Carpooling App Needed

Posted on August 22, 2021 by | 21 comments

by James C. Sherlock

A Fairfax County Public Schools Twitter message August 19:

“If you can walk with or drive your child (and perhaps a neighbor’s), please do. Also, we ask that you update your transportation status through your school, if you choose to not have your child take the bus.”

WTOP reported that as of Aug. 12, Fairfax County Public Schools was short 190 drivers.

Parents have already made plans and notified school districts if their children will be bus riders. I expect that the interlocking administration and logistics of car pools and buses to T-bone one another because of the late start and lack of preparation for the car pool option at scale. But that is where many districts are.

Driving a school bus is a difficult, nerve wracking and hazardous job. The training required makes them professional drivers. The demand for such skills and the pay and benefits in the private sector are very high and growing because of a labor shortage in the face of increasing demand.

Like pretty much every other type of blue collar work. Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Government workers and pensions, Labor & workforce

Tagged

Virginia Law Leaves Public Unions Unbound

Posted on June 9, 2021 by | 24 comments

by F. Vincent Vernuccio

First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, where Vernuccio is Visiting Fellow. 

Twenty-eight years after Governor Doug Wilder signed it into law, the Virginia General Assembly lifted the ban on public sector collective bargaining. As of May 1, localities in Virginian could give government unions a monopoly to represent all employees at a particular worksite.

However, the law passed in Richmond is unique from other states as it sets virtually no guidelines on what government unions can bargain over and how they can be formed. Thankfully, it also does not mandate public sector collective bargaining, allowing localities to keep the status quo that the Commonwealth has had for decades.

First and foremost, it should be pointed out that localities can reject public sector collective bargaining. There is good reason to do so, as simply administering the process is expensive. In fact, localities that are considering allowing bargaining are estimating hundreds of thousands or even seven figures for ongoing costs for negotiations and compliance. This spending will not go for better wages or benefits for current public employees or better services for citizens —it is simply to hire more employees to administer the infrastructure of bargaining.

The costs alone could be a large reason that, while the state law allows public employees to petition their local elected officials to vote on allowing bargaining, those representatives will vote no and keep the process that has worked in the Commonwealth for generations. Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in General Assembly, Government workers and pensions, Labor & workforce, Public employee unions, Unions

Tagged ,

The One-Sided Decision in the Reversion of Martinsville – the Start of a Trend?

Posted on May 28, 2021 by | 25 comments

by James C. Sherlock

The Martinsville Bulletin, perhaps the best remaining newspaper in the state for local coverage, published a must-read article on the reversion of Martinsville from city to town and joining Henry County.

Overview

Martinsville’s current city logo, above, was perhaps prescient. Martinsville has been hemorrhaging population, losing more than 18% in the past 10 years, and was financially stressed before that loss.

Reversion in Virginia is a one-handed game. The small cities hold all of the cards.

Henry County is vocally opposed but feels helpless to stop it. The Henry County Supervisors voted to skip the legal process to avoid the costs. They called the reversion MOU “the best we could hope for and voted for it to avoid years of court battles”.

They are right  What they avoided was the special court that would have overseen the reversion under Virginia law had they not come to an agreement. The county would have been a defendant in a trial.

The rules for that court specified in that law give the small cities every advantage in a trial. That same special court would have overseen the transition for a decade. Every decision.

The changes reversion portends for city and county residents are massive. Now that his has happened, does anyone think this will be the last reversion? Continue reading →

25 Comments

Posted in Demographics, Education (K-12), Efficiency in government, Finance (government), Governance, Government workers and pensions, Politics, Race and race relations, Social services

Tagged

VDOE Equity Director Improperly Used State Resources to Establish a Consulting Business

Posted on May 10, 2021 by | 20 comments

Leah Dozier Walker. Credit: www.leahdozierwalker.com.

On Sept. 10, 2019, the Office of the State Inspector General (OSIG) received a hotline complaint. The complaint alleged that the Virginia Department of Education’s director of equity and community engagement, Leah Dozier-Walker, was “using state resources to establish a consulting company” performing “many of the same job functions” she performed for her job, according to a redacted summary report released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Additional allegations claimed that Dozier-Walker did not report the side business in her conflict-of-interest form, and that “state time” was being used for the business without Dozier-Walker signing a form for an approved outside business.

The OSIG report concluded that Allegation #1, alleging an unethical consulting business, was “sustained,” and Allegation #2 was “largely substantiated.”

Dozier-Walker is still listed in the Virginia state employee directory as Leah D. Walker , an employee of the Virginia Department of Education-Central Office Operations. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Government workers and pensions, Scandals

Tagged

Alexandria Stands with Government Unions, Not Workers

Posted on May 7, 2021 by | 7 comments

by F. Vincent Vernuccio

In mid-April, the City of Alexandria passed an ordinance allowing government unions to bargain with the city. Unfortunately, many of the ordinance’s provisions are lopsided: they grant special advantages for government unions to easily organize public employees and trap workers into paying dues.

Alexandria’s lopsided ordinance. Alexandria’s ordinance makes it is easy for a union to petition for an election, which the ordinance says may happen in several ways, “including, without limitation, electronic authorizations and voice authorizations.” Once there is a determination by a labor relations administrator or the city manager that a majority of employees have given authorization, no one can challenge the petition.

In a sense, if a union were to use ambiguous language to trick an employee over the phone, and that employee were to respond with “yes,” the union may show that the employee wants the union to represent them – even though that may not really be the case if the employee is not informed of both their rights and of all the facts. Once the LRA makes a determination, the employee would have no recourse to say that verbal “yes” was not what they meant, or to rescind their indication of approval. Continue reading →

7 Comments

Posted in Government workers and pensions, Public employee unions

Tagged

Public Sector Collective Bargaining Could Impose Massive New Costs

Posted on April 19, 2021 by | 5 comments

by F. Vincent Vernuccio

While local governments in Virginia debate whether to allow public sector collective bargaining, many are already pointing to the high cost of implementing the process.

Fairfax County is forecasting a combined $1.6 million for administrative costs surrounding collective bargaining for both the county and the Fairfax school district, just as a start.

Loudoun County proposed almost $1 million in their planned FY 2022 budget just for increased staffing and overhead. However, with a $2 million funding shortfall some are starting to rethink the proposed expenditure.

The city of Alexandria estimates administrative costs alone will cost between $500,000 and $1 million per year. This amount varies depending on the scope of bargaining and how many individual unions they need to negotiate with.

Since there is no statewide infrastructure set up, each local government will be on its own. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Government workers and pensions

Tagged

May Day Brings Virginia’s Labor Revolution

Posted on April 1, 2021 by | 24 comments

“Liberty Leading the People,” Eugene Delacroix.

by Steve Haner

Four major changes in Virginia’s labor laws delayed at the beginning of the COVID-19 recession will all take effect May 1. All were approved by the 2020 General Assembly once Democrats controlled both legislative chambers and then delayed at the 2020 Veto Session. May Day 2021 is almost here.

Minimum Wage. The 31% increase in the state’s minimum wage, from $7.25 to $9.50 per hour, will have the broadest impact. House Bill 395 and Senate Bill 7 also raised the hourly minimum wage to $11 eight months later, on January 1, 2022, and to $12 a year later on January 1, 2023.  Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Elections, Finance (government), General Assembly, Government Oversight, Government workers and pensions, Labor & workforce, Taxes, Unions

Tagged