Author: sherlockj
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How Does Virginia Budget Early-Childhood-Education Money Wind Up in a Park in Detroit?
by James C. Sherlock – updated Oct 15 I’d like to report an organized crime. It’s just not illegal in Virginia. The political Left, fully in control of Virginia government, sends taxpayer money to leftist non-profits, who take their cuts and then send it on to local government entities and yet more nonprofits. It is unethical,…
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Big Lessons from Government Data on Virginia’s 286 Nursing Facilities
by James C. Sherlock Nursing facilities in Virginia offer an incredible mixed bag. There are heroes and villains. Much to see here. This column will offer expansive views of government data on each of the 286 nursing facilities in this state. I found out a lot things that really matter to the quality of…
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Nursing Home Ads Pose As Official State Advice
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia state government has a Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services. Who wouldn’t want one of those? But in the case of recommending nursing homes, it would be better if it would either stop or fix its broken system. Which it pays a nonprofit, VirginiaNavigator, to run. It is…
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Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 5 – The Best facilities in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock To show you the list of nursing facilities that I would use to begin a search for one for me and my family, I have built a spreadsheet of the very best facilities in Virginia. Because they are available, I made it a true list of all stars. Five stars composite…
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Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 4 – the Worst Facilities in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock Today we are going to take a look today at a snapshot of Virginia’s worst nursing homes as rated by the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid services. Medicare rates 54 of the total of 288 nursing facilities in Virginia as overall one star out of five. By definition of the way that Medicare…
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Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 3 – McAuliffe & Herring
by James C. Sherlock In the first two parts of this series, I wrote about the shortage of state inspectors for nursing homes in the Virginia Department of Health Office of Licensure and Certification (OLC) and the continuing danger it poses to Virginia patients. The problem, unfortunately, is much wider than just nursing homes. So…
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Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis — Part 2, the Business
by James C. Sherlock Nursing homes are businesses. Seventy percent of those in Virginia are for profit. They are run not by doctors but registered nurses with physicians on call. Nursing facilities very widely in size in Virginia, from the 300-bed Mulberry Creek Nursing and Rehab center in Martinsville to facilities of less than 30…
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Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 1
by James C. Sherlock None of us ever knows when we will need a nursing home for ourselves, our parents or our kids. Yes, kids. While long-term nursing care is mostly for older patients, skilled nursing facilities are needed for patients of all ages, including children, for shorter term post-op treatment and recovery. The patients…
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The Economics of Flood Control in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock We have work to do, and need to do it quickly and well. If we want to get storm defenses built before major storm damage rather than after; and if we want the federal government to pay 65% of the costs. Let’s assume we do. The “Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Planning…
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Louisiana Shows How Flood Control Can Work at Massive Scale
by James C. Sherlock Louisiana has half the population of Virginia. Virginia is ranked the 18th richest state in per capita income, Louisiana 48th. So, why has Louisiana been so phenomenally successful in flood control efforts since Katrina while Virginia writes its own framework for action that it is too expensive here? Primarily because Louisiana…
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Federal Contracting in Northern Virginia Reaches $60 Billion Annually
by James C. Sherlock The Washington Business Journal (WBJ) reported today that annual federal contracting in Northern Virginia has reached $60 billion. That compares to federal contracting there of $33.7 billion in 2000 (2020 dollars). As a reference points, I consulted St. Louis Fed data for Virginia GDP in those same years and converted the…
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The Costliest Floods in Interior Virginia Since 1969
by James C. Sherlock I offer this survey of Virginia’s biggest interior floods since 1969, mostly courtesy of the National Weather Service, as equal time for my reporting on coastal flooding in Virginia. The interior is where the most deaths have occurred in Virginia floods, not the coast. The deaths reach those levels in interior…
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Virginia’s Coast and Flood Control – The Past Is Prologue
by James C. Sherlock So how do we picture how bad a hurricane or Nor’easter could be along Virginia’s coast? What might it look like? Won’t the Outer Banks catch the worst of any hurricane and break it up? Well, no. Consider some stunning historical examples.
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Flood Control — Fatal flaws in Virginia’s Approach
by James C. Sherlock It is hurricane season, if you had not noticed. This is the first of a multi-part series of articles on flood control in Virginia. This first one will provide a brief overview of where we stand in flood control planning and construction in the Commonwealth with an emphasis on Hampton Roads.…
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Campaign Finance Reform in Virginia – the New Governor Must Lead
by James C. Sherlock I consider campaign finance reform the foremost issue facing representative government in Virginia. We are one of only a few states with no campaign donations limits at all. We pay for that in legislation enacted and not enacted because of the preferences of huge donors. And in the stink of legal…