Category: Government Finance
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Medicaid, Public Health and Chronic Disease Management
by James C. Sherlock From the CDC: Chronic diseases have significant health and economic costs in the United States. Preventing chronic diseases, or managing symptoms when prevention is not possible, can reduce these costs. Virginia pays a great deal of money every year to contractors who manage the care of its Medicaid population. It is…
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Fix One Thing — School Physical and Electronic Security
by James C. Sherlock I offer an apolitical suggestion. We know how to begin to fix school security. Do it. Step 1. Every school division has a security instruction. How many of them monitor whether that guidance is being followed? I will let them answer that. Step 2. The more complete solution is deployment of…
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A Budget Deal Emerges
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports there is an agreement on the state budget. There have been hints in the news about it all week, with the General Assembly announcing that it would come back to Richmond June 1 to take up various measures. All the details will not be available until late Sunday…
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Personnel Shortages that Plague Virginia’s Health Facilities Inspection Staff in the Hands of Budget Negotiators
by James C. Sherlock One of the most important responsibilities of Virginia state government is to inspect medical facilities and home care providers to ensure we are safe when we enter their care. It continues to fail in that responsibility thanks to years of Virginia budgets that have consciously ignored the need for increased inspector…
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Inflation and the Budget
by Dick Hall-Sizemore In addition to conventional budget requests, the Youngkin administration is likely to receive requests from agencies in the fall budget development exercise for additional funding to enable them to cover additional costs resulting from higher inflation. (Yes, I realize that the 2022-2024 biennial budget has not even been agreed upon yet, but,…
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What’s the Governor Waiting For?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore At the reconvened session on April 27, Governor Youngkin returned 116 bills to the General Assembly with recommended amendments. Legislators accepted the Governor’s recommendations on 91 of those bills. The remaining 25 bills were returned to him as originally passed. The Governor has three options for each of these remaining bills: sign…
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Stoney Versus the Environ-istas
by James A. Bacon Environmental activists in the City of Richmond aren’t happy with Mayor Levar Stoney’s proposed budget. The City’s Draft Climate Equity Action Plan sets a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030 — and reaching net zero by 2050 — but Stoney’s budget plan doesn’t provide funding for conversion to…
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Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics in the Virginia Department of Education – Average Teacher Salaries Edition
by James C. Sherlock I was in the early stages of researching a column on school salaries in Virginia when I came upon yet another bad report. In 2021 Special Session I, the General Assembly directed the Superintendent of Public Instruction to provide a report on the status of staff salaries, by local school division, to…
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Virginia Budget Deal Stalled as Democrats Demand $3B in Increased Spending
by Shaun Kenney Just to illustrate how fanatically out of touch Senate Democrats are as they frantically try to spend $3 billion on more government, check out State Senator Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) on Twitter as he blasts Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposal for gasoline tax relief: Remember — we are sitting on a $3bn surplus fueled…
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Virginia’s Incredible Money-Spending Machine
by James A. Bacon Spending by Virginia’s state government isn’t just increasing — spending is increasing at an accelerating rate. The current budget biennium (fiscal 2021-22) and the next (fiscal 2023-24) will have seen the two biggest spending increases of the past nine budget cycles. Assuming no modifications to the next biennial budget’s spending totals…
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A SW Virginia View of the Budget Impasse
by Scott Dreyer Virginia’s headline-grabbing elections last fall put Republicans back in the top three statewide offices for the first time in about a decade and a Republican majority back in the House of Delegates. However, since state senators enjoy four-year terms and none were up for election last November, senate Democrats still hold a…
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Richmond’s Reaganesque Time for Choosing
by Chris Braunlich Richmond, like Washington, has always been a place where an “insider’s game” is played – not in a pejorative sense, but simply as the way things are done. Relationships are paramount, people speak in the arcane language of lawmaking, agendas are confusing for outsiders, and the activities of a subcommittee for an…
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Richmond, Its Unions and Taxes
by James C. Sherlock Richmond residents should note that: The number of employees at City of Richmond in year 2020 was 4,140. Average annual salary was $56,410 and median salary was $50,001. City of Richmond average salary is 20 percent higher than USA average and median salary is 15 percent higher than USA median. Median…
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Richmond Parents and Taxpayers, Welcome to Chicago Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock The gulf between what the City of Richmond School Board (RSB) and the Richmond City Council (RCC) on what will be negotiated with their public unions is actually an ocean. The RSB has authorized the negotiation of virtually everything about how the schools are run. It leaves nothing off the table…
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A Narrative About Virginia’s Rural Hospitals that Obscures the Facts
by James C. Sherlock Becker’s Healthcare, a widely read medical news organization, published a story on Friday, “892 hospitals at risk of closure, state by state.” Rural hospitals were the topic. It cited as its source a report from a non-profit named The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform (CHQPR), which presents itself as…