Category: Efficiency in Government
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Medical Facility State Inspector Shortfalls An Urgent Matter for the Governor and General Assembly
by James C. Sherlock Virginians are blessed to have a person running the Department of Health Office of Licensure and Inspection (OLC) who may be the best public servant in the Commonwealth. She desperately needs help to do the work she is assigned in order to protect us. Kim Beazley, the Director of that Office,…
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This Could Be Interesting… Virginia to Get a “Chief Transformation Officer”
by James A. Bacon This evening Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin announced several new key appointments, including his chief of staff and deputy chief of staff. But it is the appointment of Eric Moeller, a partner at McKinsey & Company, as “Chief Transformation Officer” that I find most intriguing. I don’t believe that the Governor’s Office has…
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Virginia State and Local Agencies Must Spend Federal Coronavirus Relief Funds by December 31
by James C. Sherlock State and local governments are awash in billions of dollars of federal funding with various federal expiration dates if not spent. The General Assembly set its own deadline. Recipients have to spend federal money allocated by the General Assembly by Dec. 31 or lose it back to the Governor for repurposing.…
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In Praise of Two Great Public Servants
by James A. Bacon Virginia has been blessed to have had many superb public servants over the years. They may not be remembered in the history books, which have a bias toward elected politicians, but we are reminded of the indispensable contributions of at least two of them in today’s news clippings. One is leaving…
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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 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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VEC Made $930 Million in “Incorrect” Payments Last Year
by James A. Bacon Inundated by unemployment claims during the COVID-19-induced recession last year, the Virginia Employment Commission made an estimated $930 million in “incorrect” payments last year, according to an update by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. The magnitude of wasted dollars has gone largely unnoticed as the media and the Northam…
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Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? Virginia’s 211 – Service or Crapshoot?
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes the government of Virginia just makes you want to scream, cry, stay under the covers, whatever. Navigating government and private social services agencies when you need help is hard, even more so a crisis. But it is way harder in Virginia than it needs to be. To streamline the navigation…
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The Accelerating Scale of the Legislate-Regulate-Spend-and-Repeat Cycle Has Broken Government
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in Corruption and Scandals, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, General Assembly, Governance, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Mental illness and substance abuse, Money in politics, Politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlementsby James C. Sherlock Virginians – the state and individual citizens – have received over $81 billion in COVID-related federal funding. That comes to $9,507 for every man, woman and child in the Commonwealth. Big money. That was Virginia’s share of $5.3 trillion in federal spending just on the pandemic (so far). A trillion dollars…
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No PAC for Disaster Preparedness and Response
by James C. Sherlock Virginia’s responses to COVID were a continuing national embarrassment. Individual Virginia department and agencies had no operational pandemic response plans. They ignored specific and prescient directions to build and exercise such plans in the dormant Virginia Pandemic Emergency Plan. VDEM then attempted a coverup. No PPE stockpiles. Last in testing. Last in…
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Fredericksburg’s Tree Tyrants
by James A. Bacon I was driving up Interstate 95 to Fredericksburg one Saturday in April when I got a call from my mother. Pick up a rental chain saw on the way into town, she said. She wanted me to cut down a crape myrtle in front of her house. I knew well the…
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Is DOJ’s Focus on Healthcare Monopolies Coming to Virginia?
by James C. Sherlock The Acting head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, Richard A. Powers, yesterday delivered a speech that described the Justice Department’s new goals, strategies and resources for criminal antitrust enforcement. The clouds have darkened over Virginia’s healthcare monopolies. The Commonwealth. Virginia has failed in its duty to oversee its healthcare industry. The…
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Richmond Schools’ Flawed Data Threatens Federal Funds
by James C. Sherlock The massive flows of federal and state funding to local school districts are based largely on data reported by the schools to their districts, the districts to the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), and VDOE to the U.S. Department of Education. In Fiscal Year 2018, the U.S. Department of Education sent…
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Martinsville and the Reversion – Part 2
by James C. Sherlock Dick Hall-Sizemore yesterday gave us a rather bloodless, bureaucratic, and relatively positive description of the upcoming shotgun marriage between Martinsville and Henry County. He could not seem to understand the angst on the part of Henry County. I’ll try to help him out. It was good to have the historical perspective…