Diamonds Aren’t Forever

Posted on April 15, 2024 by | 25 comments

by Jon Baliles

The entire saga of the development of the Diamond District project in Richmond has come full circle in the last 18 months, as Mayor Levar Stoney, desperate for an economic development win after the failure of his Navy Hill boondoggle and two failed casino referendums, has rounded the bases trying to get a baseball stadium built before the franchise was going to be moved by the powers at Major League Baseball (MLB). Finally scoring a run, however, will come with a cost: $170 million to be exact, because that is how much debt the city will issue  to pay for building the stadium and surrounding infrastructure for the rest of the Diamond District development.

The big news broke last week about the new plan to build the baseball stadium but is also being accompanied by a new financing and development structure and procedures. The announcement unfortunately pre-empted the planned Part 3 of our baseball stadium series, which explained that, at this late date, the only option left to get the stadium built in time and not have MLB yank the franchise was for the city to issue general obligation (G.O.) bonds. That was the only evidence MLB was going to accept to prove the money to build the stadium was actually there and construction could actually begin, because all the talk from the city had been just one missed promise after another, and delay after delay.

The bomb was set to explode and the Mayor and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) played the last card they had left. They will put the onus of the debt and risk all on the city’s shoulders, issue the debt quickly and get the shovels turning to meet the deadline. But that is not at all how this process began, and it has changed drastically in the many months the city spent dithering. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Business and Economy, Economic development, Infrastructure, Land use & development, Politics, Taxes

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Will Democrats Shut Down State Over Tax Hike?

Posted on April 15, 2024 by | 7 comments

By Steve Haner

The fight that is about to occur at the Assembly’s reconvened session on Wednesday is entirely about taxes, not about spending.

An analysis of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposed compromise budget – done by the Democrats’ favorite financial bean counters, not by conservatives – confirms his budget comes extremely close to the spending levels Democrats approved at the end of the General Assembly.  The gap compared to the $188 billion overall budget is little more than a rounding error.

For K-12 education, the gap between the two budgets is a few hundred million dollars out of an overall education budget of $24 billion. As you review the list of detailed comparisons made by the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, item after item is the same as in the budget approved in March. That includes funding for healthy teacher and state employee raises the Democrats were so proud to include.

In other cases where the Democrats expanded spending, the Governor accepted 50-75% of what they approved. He pays for some capital projects with debt instead of cash and utilizes money from the Literary Fund for retirement premiums, both legal and common strategies used in the budget for decades. Governors of both parties have done those often. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Business and Economy, General Assembly, Taxes

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Fairfax Spends More, Teaches Less

Posted on April 14, 2024 by | 29 comments

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 and administrators.

However, as FCPS spending goes up, achievement goes down. Over the past 5 years, per-student cost has increased, from $16K to $21K, while SAT scores fell, from 1212 to 1181. Never in half a century have FCPS SAT scores seen such a precipitous decline.

Your crucial failure is in teaching minority students mastery of reading and arithmetic by third grade. Most of our crime is committed by individuals whom the public schools failed to teach reading. The fault is the curriculum and unaccountable administrators,not the students, their race, nor their families. Your budget does not even mention Equal Access to Literacy, which was supposed to replace whole word reading instruction with phonics. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Education (K-12), Efficiency in government, Taxes

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Jeanine’s Memes

Posted on April 14, 2024 by | 15 comments

From the Bull Elephant

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Bacon Meme of the Week

Posted on April 13, 2024 by | 3 comments

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What the School-Discipline Meltdown Looked like in Newport News

Posted on April 12, 2024 by | 42 comments

by James A. Bacon

A special grand jury investigating a six-year-old’s shooting of a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News has released its report, and the findings are almost as horrifying as the shooting itself.

The grand jury indicted Richneck’s assistant principal Ebony Parker on eight counts of child abuse. It is the first time, suggests The Washington Post, that an administrator has been charged in connection with a school shooting.

While Parker’s inaction was surely inexcusable, the breakdown in safety runs far deeper than the negligence of a single school official. The behavior of Parker and other individuals reflects institutional dysfunction, which in turn reflects deep-rooted attitudes in the educational profession and society at large.

These dysfunctions and attitudes, I suggest, are endemic throughout most of Virginia’s public education system. They are reflected in widespread reports of violence against teachers all around Virginia, especially in school districts where “progressive” ideology is dominant. Abigail Zwerner, victim of the six-year-old’s attack, may be the only Virginia school teacher to have been shot in recent years, but hers is no isolated instance of violence. Continue reading →

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UVA Report Finds No Pay Inequity for Black, Hispanic Profs

Posted on April 11, 2024 by | 14 comments

Adjusted salary differentials for tenure/tenure track faculty.

by James A. Bacon

The Racial Equity Task Force, a 2020 document that transformed governance at the University of Virginia, listed 12 top priorities for addressing the legacy of historical racism. One was to address “serious challenges to racial equity in staff hiring, wages, retention, promotion, and procurement” by auditing where policies and procedures might be “reinforcing entrenched inequities.”

The report cited no actual evidence of disparities in pay, and the authors did not assert that they existed. In a report that lambasted UVA as “an inaccessible, rich, ‘white’ institution,” pay inequities were just assumed to occur and needed to be documented.

Well, last year the Ryan administration hired the DCI Consulting Group to evaluate “pay equity” for UVA faculty based on gender and race. The results, based on 2022 compensation, were made available to UVA January 5 and, sure enough, pay inequities were found…. for non-tenured Asian-American faculty.

Remarkably, adjusted for their level in the academic hierarchy, seniority and other variables affecting compensation, Black professors who are tenured or on the tenure track were f0und to earn 3% more than their peers, Hispanic professors 3.4% more, and Whites 1.6% less — although DCI did not deem the differences to be “statistically significant.” Continue reading →

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Posted in DEI, Education (higher ed), Race and race relations

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Utilities Will Gamble on Nukes With Your $$$

Posted on April 11, 2024 by | 21 comments

Artist rendering of VOYGR™ SMR plants powered by NuScale Power Module™

By Steve Haner

Standing firm against raising taxes is a fine thing, but it would help if Virginia’s leaders also stopped using people’s electricity bills to fund rent-seeking energy speculations.

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) has tweaked, but not vetoed, pending bills that allow both of Virginia’s investor-owned utilities to charge ratepayers for power plants that may not be built. The dream projects involve small modular nuclear technology, proven in military applications but so far speculative for commercial generation.

The Governor’s proposed amendments (substitutes really, but not substantial substitutes) do not greatly enhance any consumer protection. In theory, the regulatory State Corporation Commission could refuse a future application to charge ratepayers, but it seldom thwarts the will of the legislature. Expect to see your bills raised in the next 18 months or so to pay for plants that may never be built.

During the session one of the concerns raised was that different bills with different rules would apply to Dominion Energy Virginia and Appalachian Power Company. That is where we have ended up. House Bill 1491 applies only to APCo with its 500,000 customers, and Senate Bill 454 applies only to Dominion and its 2.6 million customers. (You lucky rural cooperative customers escape again.)

The substitute versions will be voted on April 17 and there is no reason from the history of the bills to date (H1491 and S454) to expect they will fail. Neither will they be unanimous. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Are Nonchalant Adults Responsible For School Shootings?

Posted on April 11, 2024 by | 13 comments

by Kerry Dougherty 

Finally.

For instance, the former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News — Ebony Parker — has been indicted on eight criminal charges in connection with the shooting of first grade teacher Abigail Zwerner in January 2023.

This stunning act of senseless violence put Newport News in headlines around the world. After all, it isn’t often that a 6-year-old carries a loaded gun to school and attempts to kill his teacher.

The mother of the shooter, Deja Taylor, is in prison. She’s serving 21 months on federal gun charges and two years on state charges of felony child neglect.

But there is plenty of blame to spread around in this shocking case.

School officials were warned repeatedly about this boy’s antisocial and dangerous behavior. Yet he remained in a classroom with normal kids. On the day of the shooting at least one child reported that the kid had a gun and school administrators failed to take the report seriously.
In fact, according to a civil suit filed by Ms. Zwerner, who is seeking $40 million in damages, the shooter was a persistent discipline problem. He’d been kicked out of kindergarten and sent to another school after he reportedly tried to strangle and choke his teacher.

On the day of the shooting, Zwerner reportedly told Parker that the child was in a “violent mood.”

Yet nothing was done. Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12)

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Fighting Over the Check at the Green Power Cafe

Posted on April 10, 2024 by | 24 comments

By Steve Haner

New power plants are pretty useless unless they are connected by new power lines. The debate over who pays for those tall towers and miles of cable can be just as divisive as the fight over who pays for a proposed nuclear plant or offshore wind turbines.

Bottom line, of course, the customers ultimately pay. But which customers? Should it be those most reliant on that individual transmission line, everybody within the utility, or should it be all the customers within all the utilities inside a regional transmission organization?

As Virginians who are part of the PJM Interconnection, when should we be forced to pay for power lines in Pennsylvania or Ohio? The purpose of PJM is to move power between all the states involved, carefully maintaining the proper load on the highly vulnerable grid. There are certainly times when a new line is so crucial to reliability, we should all pay.

But then there are times when we shouldn’t. One of those times might be when a state makes a political decision that results in a massive need for new transmission lines. And an excellent example of that problem is Virginia’s generous tax incentives for data centers which have sparked a massive growth in demand for both new generation and new power lines to serve them. Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Governor Leaves Consistency and Principle Behind

Posted on April 10, 2024 by | 20 comments

Playing a “skills game”. Photo credit: Virginian Pilot

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

With his proposed amendments to legislation regulating “games of skill,” Gov. Youngkin has demonstrated deep inconsistencies, if not outright hypocrisy.

Before getting into the specifics, a little background is needed.

“Games of skill” are machines on which people can play and win money. The proponents of the machines claim that some element of skill is needed to win. The opponents claim that the machines are not that different from slot machines, in which pure luck is involved. Not having played any “games of skill,” I am not going to offer any judgment on this argument.

Skill games are present in many, if not most, convenience stores, truck stops, and even some sit-down restaurants, such as the Kelly’s Tavern franchise in Virginia Beach. The machines themselves are owned by large corporations, mostly from out of state. The owners of the venues receive an agreed-upon share of the revenue generated by the machines. The revenue can be significant and many of the businesses have come to depend on it. Continue reading →

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Posted in Gambling, General Assembly

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Jefferson Institute’s Hit List Bills Mostly Gone

Posted on April 10, 2024 by | 16 comments

By Derrick Max

Monday was not just the near total solar eclipse in Virginia, but also the deadline for Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) to act on the budget and the remaining bills on his desk. As our Steve Haner wrote, in “Governor’s Budget Compromise Eclipses Fears of Stalemate,” we are generally positive about the approximately 230 budget amendments Governor Youngkin made.

The Governor sacrificed two-thirds of his spending priorities while giving Democrats almost all of theirs. He did this while removing any tax increases from the budget and forgoing all of his recommended tax reforms (reductions). This was more than a good faith offer and should be embraced by any member of the General Assembly, Democrat or Republican, serious about getting a budget compromise passed before the end of the fiscal year.

Just before midnight on Monday, Governor Youngkin acted on the last of the 1,046 bills he had been sent this legislative session. The final tally: he signed 777, proposed amendments for 116, and vetoed 153. He will have a second chance to veto bills where his suggested amendments are rejected.

While I am sure much will be made of the record number of vetoes, Democrats in the General Assembly opted to send a wish list of bills to the Governor that they knew would never get his signature. Nor would some have even passed the muster with previous Democratically controlled General Assemblies or liberal Governors around the country. This is due, in part, to the retirement or defeat of the more moderate members of the Democratic caucuses in the General Assembly. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Business and Economy, General Assembly, Labor & workforce, Taxes

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Youngkin Kicks the Can Down the Road on Affirmative Action

Posted on April 9, 2024 by | 10 comments

by Jock Yellott

By partisan votes, the Democrat controlled General Assembly presented Republican Governor Youngkin with HB 1404, mandating affirmative action in Virginia government contracts.  

Bacon’s Rebellion published a piece that listed the bill as a veto candidate. One of those that would “have the greatest negative economic impact on the Commonwealth.”

But instead of a veto, at the 11th hour on Monday April 8, 2024 Governor Youngkin proposed amending it.

The amendments would postpone its effective date for a year — if reenacted by the General Assembly. Meantime, let’s have more “input.” Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Economic development, General Assembly

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A Flood of Budget Amendments

Posted on April 8, 2024 by | 24 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Well, Gov. Youngkin has not carried through on his veiled threat to veto the entire budget–yet.

Instead, he has proposed more than 230 amendments that would get rid of the expansion of the sales tax to digital services that the General Assembly passed, along with an extra $1 billion in expenditures that would have been funded with that additional revenue.  (Source: Cardinal News.)

To really get a sense of what new spending he is proposing to reduce or eliminate, one would need to laboriously construct a detailed spreadsheet or database. I will wait for the analysis that the staff of the money committees produce. They are likely working on it now.

Two quick observations:

1. Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), the Senate Majority leader, in responding to the governor’s actions, relied on a common misconception regarding the Virginia budget. Worrying about packaging amendments that cut revenue with amendments that change spending, he speculated, “You’ll end up having a constitutionally unbalanced budget, which would be illegal.”

Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing in the state constitution that requires the General Assembly to pass a balanced budget. What the constitution does is put the responsibility on the governor to execute a balanced budget. Article 10, Section 7 requires that the “Governor, subject to such criteria as may be established by the General Assembly, shall ensure that no expenses of the Commonwealth be incurred which exceed total revenues on hand and anticipated during a period not to exceed the two years and six months period established by this section of the Constitution.”

It would politically irresponsible and risky for the General Assembly to pass a budget bill that was purposely unbalanced, but there is no constitutional prohibition on its doing so. The constitution does require, however, that the governor clean up whatever mess the legislature may create by doing so. (This is one of the many things that Ric Brown, the long-time deputy director and director of the Dept. of Planning and Budget and Secretary of Finance, taught me.)

2. I am so glad that I am retired and did not have to experience the grueling hours that the DPB staff had to put in over the last few weeks to develop these amendments.

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Compromise Budget Can Eclipse Stalemate

Posted on April 8, 2024 by | 17 comments

Gov. Glenn Youngkin

By Steve Haner

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) is offering a compromise on the disputed state budget that gives Virginia’s Democratic legislators most of the spending they were initially demanding, especially for local schools and early childhood education. The Governor is also offering a quick path to a resolution that avoids additional months of budget stalemate and political division.

“On a day when Virginians were thrilled to witness an 80% eclipse of the sun, they should also cheer a budget compromise where a Republican governor moved about that far in the direction of meeting the Democrats’ stated goals without added taxes,” stated Derrick Max, President of the Thomas Jefferson Institute. “This is a more than reasonable good faith offer, recognizing that in a divided government, compromise is key.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Business and Economy, General Assembly, Taxes

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