Category: Government Finance
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A Bold Reform for Education Funding
by Chris Braunlich (Author’s Note: Eight years ago, we suggested incoming Governor Terry McAuliffe pursue a bold education funding reform that would modernize and supercharge Virginia’s education infrastructure. He chose not to. We offer it again, verbatim, to Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin … because we believe the idea crosses ideological lines and party divides and would…
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Financing Public Education–2–Non-SOQ Programs
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Note: This is the second installment of an overview and discussion of state financing of K-12 education in localities. Part 1 of this series was an overview of financing related to the Standards of Quality. The Standards of Quality is the major category through which the Commonwealth provides financial assistance for public…
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Financing Public Education–Part I, Standards of Quality
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The 2022-2024 budget proposed by Governor Northam includes $8.6 billion in general fund appropriations in the first year and $8.3 billion in the second year for state assistance to local K-12 programs. These amounts are a little more than a quarter of the entire general fund budget. Compared to the appropriation for…
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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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Embarrassing Managerial Incompetence
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Northam administration has just had an embarrassing case of managerial incompetence exposed. A series of articles by the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Patrick Wilson (here, here, and here) sets out the story of the Department of Health laying off 14 state employees who monitor drinking water systems across the state, including six field…
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For the Left, Government Is Always Underfunded
by Arthur G. Purves Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin has proposed several savings for Virginia’s taxpayers, including doubling the standard deduction, providing a one-time tax rebate, eliminating the grocery tax, and suspending the 10-cent increase in the gas tax. His proposals come at a time when Virginia has a record $2.6 billion budget surplus. Nevertheless, Virginia Public…
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Northam Blinks: State Tax Cuts Coming
by Steve Haner First published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Virginia’s leaders are no longer debating whether to cut state taxes. The argument now will be over how to cut state taxes. Outgoing Democratic Governor Ralph Northam announced Tuesday that his final introduced budget will include $2.1 billion in lower taxes, created…
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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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It’s Silly Season
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Richmond Times Dispatch reports that Governor Northam will include $27.4 million in his budget bill for a new Center for Firearm Violence Intervention and Prevention in the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). What a dumb proposal! Setting aside the obvious politics surrounding the subject matter, as a budget analyst, I…
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Budget Maneuvering
by Dick Hall-Sizemore One of the quirks about Virginia’s governing system is that an outgoing governor gets to submit a budget proposal for the upcoming biennium, when he will not be around to execute it. It would be difficult for any new governor trying to deal with a budget that he had no part in…
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There Will Never Be Enough
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Those of us at the state Department of Planning and Budget (DPB) who worked closely with the capital budget used to marvel at the submissions from higher ed institutions. It did not matter how much had been approved and funded in the recent past; each year there were more and bigger requests.…
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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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Infrastructure Vote? Oh No, That’s Their Bill
by Dick Hall-Sizemore There has long been a consensus that America needs to pay more attention to its infrastructure. Last week, the House of Representatives passed President Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure package and sent it to the President for his signature. Of the total amount, $550 billion was new money; the remainder was funding normally…
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JLARC Agrees: VA Economy Lags National Growth
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. This makes if official: Even the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) has documented and highlighted how poorly Virginia’s economy is performing, how far our state is lagging national growth averages. The admission comes in the most recent summary…
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The State Tax Gravy Train Accelerates
by Steve Haner First published today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Any claim that Virginia cannot reduce taxes on its citizens without damaging state programs has been further eroded by two recent announcements. The explosion of revenue from recent state tax increases is continuing into this new fiscal year, pointing to a…