Category: Efficiency in Government
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The Buck Stops Where, Exactly?
by Jon Baliles The city’s voter registrar is in the news again this week, and not because there is a primary election next week or huge elections both nationally and locally in November. This week, Graham Moomaw reported in the Virginia Mercury that the city’s Human Resource Department conducted a review of the Registrar’s Office…
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Another Rubber-Stamped UVA Budget, But Some Useful Discussion This Time
by James A. Bacon The University of Virginia Board of Visitors unanimously approved a $5.9 billion budget for UVA in 2024-25. The $2.4 billion budget for the academic campus in Charlottesville represents a 6.8% spending increase over the current year. The budget also includes $3.3 billion for the UVA medical center and $76 million…
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Footloose Aaron Spence. Having Fun On Loudoun County’s Dime
Republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited. by Kerry Dougherty Let’s just admit it. Those of us who thought Aaron Spence was a disaster as Virginia Beach School Superintendent are experiencing a shameless bout of schadenfreude. Yep, we’re enjoying the misfortune of others. Those “others” would be Loudoun County parents and taxpayers. Aaron Spence…
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Four Years In, Energy Subsidy Helping Very Few
By Steve Haner Four years after approval, a state program to provide lower electricity costs to low income families is still struggling to get going. Administrative costs have far exceeded any actual benefits to utility customers to date. It is called the Percentage of Income Payment Program (PIPP) and was created by the 2020 General…
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Two-Mile Moonscape in Virginia Beach: Thanks, Bureaucrats!
by Kerry Dougherty Virginia Beach politicians are doing their happy dance. Earlier this week state officials gave them good news: they’re “near the finish line” on the Laskin Road project. Oh, please. We’ve seen this movie before. Let’s review, shall we? In 2019 construction began on the two-mile-long road widening project through the heavily traveled…
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Open the Books Digs Up 100 More DEI Employees at UVA
by James A. Bacon Back in March, Adam Andrzejewski and his team at Open the Books, a non-profit dedicated to transparency in government spending, concluded that the University of Virginia is spending $20 million in payroll for 235 employees (including student interns) on work relating to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Describing Andrzejewski’s numbers as “wildly…
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Virginia Beach Budget Will Lower Your Standard of Living
When Councilman John Moss narrowly lost his seat on City Council in a 2022 three-way race, Virginia Beach lost the lone elected official who actually understood municipal budgeting. Moss could be counted on to make city budgeteers squirm as he peppered them with intelligent questions about why they continually funded vacant city jobs and then…
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Fairfax Spends More, Teaches Less
by Arthur Purves (Editor’s note: Arthur Purves, president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, addressed the Fairfax County School Board on Feb. 13, 2024. His remarks, with updated numbers, are posted below.) At church I get to ask students and parents around Vienna about our schools. The feedback is positive, and we appreciate your dedicated teachers…
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Factoid of the Day: Nation’s Worst Mail Delivery
How bad is on-time mail delivery to Central Virginia? According to U.S. Post Office inspector general figures, it is the worst in the country. Postal service is so bad that a Richmond electoral official warned voters not to risk letting their ballots, in the words of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “be swallowed by a dysfunctional Postal…
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University of Virginia Spends $20 Million On 235 DEI Employees, With Some Making $587,340 Per Year
It takes tuition payments from nearly 1,000 undergraduates just to pay their base salaries! Bacon’s Rebellion is reposting this article published by Open the Books, a nonprofit group dedicated to transparency in government spending, and republished on the Jefferson Council blog. Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski will speak at the Jefferson Council 3rd annual…
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The Mailman Did It
by Jon Baliles They say bad news comes in threes, and this week is no exception for news from the City of Richmond’s Finance Department. This week wasn’t just raining; it has been a monsoon when it comes to sloppy administrative work, penalties, interest, and deflecting blame. Madison McNamee with NBC12 filed a story last…
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Stuck in the Secretary’s Office
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Youngkin administration is sitting on regulations needed to implement important legislation enacted by the General Assembly in 2020. The delay constitutes a violation of that law. In its 2020 Special Session, the General Assembly expanded the grounds for decertifying law-enforcement and jail officers. The background of this legislation was described in…
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The Incomplete Case for Higher Tuition at UVa
by James A. Bacon As the Board of Visitors ponders how much to raise tuition & fees in the next two academic years, the University of Virginia is grappling with strong inflationary pressures and a long-term shortfall in state aid, senior university administrators said Wednesday. Even so, administrators told the Board’s Finance Committee, UVa offers…
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UVa Spending on Staff Surges, Spending on Students Trails
by James A. Bacon Always alert for opportunities to arm the University of Virginia Board of Visitors members with statistics they don’t see in their board presentations, The Jefferson Council presents the table above, compiled from data published by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). The takeaway: UVa boosted overall E&G (educational &…
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Loudoun Supervisors Defend Exorbitant Junkets
by Ram Venkatachalam Until recently, members of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors haven’t tried to sell themselves as international diplomats and business development experts. They aren’t. Nor do we have a long history of waste, fraud, and abuse when it comes to how members of local government spend our tax dollars, especially for money…