Category: Government Finance
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Going Nowhere Fast: Virginia’s Transportation Dialogue
Northern Virginians are complaining again about their inadequate transportation infrastructure, and I can’t blame them. Traffic is terrible, especially on transportation arteries like Interstate 95, and I avoid going up there, or even through there, if I possibly can. NoVa is transportation hell — a point that was reiterated Wednesday during a forum sponsored by…
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Court Backs Little Debbie In Tax Dispute
Don’t underestimate Little Debbie – the spunky tyke took on the Augusta County tax collectors and won. But the county still has her money. The Virginia Supreme Court has sided with manufacturer McKee Foods Corporation, which makes the Little Debbie snack products, in a dispute over the tax assessment on its 828,000-square-foot factory in Augusta…
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Compare Localities to Improve Performance
I like the way Roy Fauber thinks. One doesn’t have to agree with the conclusions of the retired Federal Research Bank of Richmond executive to appreciate how he goes about dissecting issues in a recent op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The cities of Richmond and Norfolk are close peers, he observes. They are similar in…
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Virginia Unemployment Fund Gains In Good Times
Laissez les bon temps roulez. Virginia’s strong employment climate is adding a financial spare tire to Virginia’s unemployment trust fund, now above 83 percent solvency by one actuarial measure and exceeding a federal recommended minimum balance on another measure. The annual unemployment fund status update for a legislative oversight commission Wednesday lasted about 30 minutes,…
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VRS Hybrid Plan Drawing Even Fewer Contributions
The percentage of state employees making voluntary contributions to their own retirement pot, contributions which are matched with free money, has continued its rapid decline over the past year. As of March 2019, fewer than half of state employees who should be investing in their own retirement are doing so, according to a Virginia Retirement…
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Staying Within the Debt Capacity
I am following up on an earlier post discussing the capital budget recommendations of the Governor and the Commonwealth’s debt capacity. Jim Bacon’s recent post discussing Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne’s worries about increasing debt also dealt with this general issue. Guided by Secretary Layne, the Governor’s introduced budget was relatively conservative in its capital…
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Just How Smart Is the Smart-Scale Scoring System?
Over the past month Del. Dave LaRock, R-Hamilton, has criticized the state’s Smart Scale scoring system for allocating transportation dollars. By law, he says, the system is supposed to prioritize congestion mitigation. But the latest round of allocations was biased heavily in favor of land use and economic development. As a result, a Metro station…
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Layne Cautions Again about Excess Debt and Risk
The good news in Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne’s presentation to the House Appropriations Committee this morning is that General Fund revenues, after a below-forecast start to the fiscal year, surged 27.4% in April. On a year-to-date basis, total revenues are 6.2% ahead of last year, beating the 5.9% forecast for Fiscal 2019. The bad…
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Spending Increases, Road Quality Decreases
A new study by Transportation for America and Taxpayers for Common Sense documents the magnitude of the “Growth Ponzi scheme” in the U.S. road transportation system. Between 2009 and 2017, the 50 states collectively added more than 223,000 lane miles to their road networks. At an average cost of $24,000 per lane mile to keep…
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Your State Government in Action: Fire Programs Edition
An audit of three public safety agencies — the Virginia State Police, the Department of Emergency Management, and the Department of Fire Programs — has revealed numerous shortcomings in internal control systems, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “Today was not a good day for public safety [agencies],” acknowledged Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne, who attended the…
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“A Dozen Pockets of Extreme and Growing Risk”
The economy is chugging along at a 3% growth rate, unemployment is hitting record lows, productivity is surging. The economy looks like it’s in fantastic shape. A friend of mine and long-time Trump hater, normally disinclined to give the president credit for anything, marveled recently that the low-inflation, low-unemployment economy “is as good as it…
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Risk and the Fisc
As the Northam administration’s point man in negotiations with the New York bond-rating agencies, Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne spends much of his time worrying about the Commonwealth of Virginia’s credit-worthiness. The state nearly lost its sterling AAA bond rating last year. It was a close thing, he says. Even now, he adds, Virginia isn’t…
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Mass Transit and Unfunded Pension Liabilities
It has long been known that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which operates the Washington region’s commuter rail and bus systems, has unfunded retirement-benefit costs approaching $3 billion (on top of its multibillion-dollar unfunded maintenance backlog). While the Commonwealth of Virginia is not legally obligated to made good Virginia’s share WMATA’s shortfalls, as a…
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Danville’s Bad $912,000 Loan — Isolated Case or Tip of the Iceberg?
Danville City Council will decide next week whether to forgive $912,000 owed the city by its land purchasing arm, the Industrial Development Authority. The money represents the unpaid portion of a $1.6 million loan issued in 2015 to entice Telvista, a call center operator which closed its facility in 2018 and ceased making lease payments.…
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Bacon Bits: Highs and Lows
Digital gold rush. How lucrative are data centers for Loudoun County? The prosperous Northern Virginia county expects to collect $200 million in fiscal 2020 from the property tax on computer equipment, up 35% over 2019, according to the Washington Business Journal. Last week, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors adopted a $3.2 billion operating budget that…