Category: Government Finance
-
Uh, Governor? This is How It Works
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Someone needs to tell Governor Youngkin or his Secretary of Finance how things work in the state’s financial structure. According to a recent report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Governor said that he has directed Randy McCabe, the Comptroller, or director of the Department of Accounts, to “to set aside $397 million…
-
Higher Ed to General Assembly: More, More, More
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The 2022-2024 biennial state budget that became effective on July 1 included more than $1 billion in general fund appropriation for capital projects for institutions of higher education. This was in addition to at least $1 billion in general fund-supported appropriations in the previous biennial budget. One would think that more than…
-
Virginia Needs Better Information Sharing to Provide Mandated Public Services to Illegals Efficiently and Effectively
by James C. Sherlock I am on record as a persistent advocate of improving the quality of both schools and medical services for poor and minority citizens. It has been the main focus of my work for years. In a directly related matter, we read, with different reactions depending upon our politics, of the struggles…
-
Love that Budget Surplus! Use It to Bullet-Proof State Finances.
by James A. Bacon There’s good news for Virginia on the fiscal front. We need to make the most of it. The Old Dominion closed fiscal 2022 with a $1.94 billion General Fund revenue surplus, Governor Glenn Youngkin announced yesterday. Total revenue rose 16.3% from the previous fiscal year. “Fiscal 2022 was an extraordinary year…
-
Public Featherbedding at the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority?
by James C. Sherlock Daniel Berti published an excellent investigative report this morning in The Virginian-Pilot. “Norfolk’s housing authority is in ‘dire’ financial condition, bloated after years of failing to downsize” details what may prove to be waste and abuse at that agency to preserve jobs as the administrative requirements and funding of the mission…
-
The Crisis of Reducing Costs and Maintaining Standards at Virginia’s State Colleges and Universities
by James C. Sherlock Virginia’s state-funded colleges and universities are too expensive. Tuitions are the headline numbers. But student fees and food and housing costs are as important to the budgets of families and individual students as tuition. Costs within the college system have gone up because of a general lack of management systems and…
-
The Governor’s Tuition Freeze Request and the Board at UVa – It’s Complicated
by James C. Sherlock Much has been made of a recent request by Governor Glenn Youngkin to eliminate a tuition increase at the University of Virginia and the Board’s decision not to honor it. The tensions between means and ends that have to be resolved in producing a budget at any large and complex university…
-
Continuity in the State Finance Agencies
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The lead story in Tuesday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch was a curious one. Its headline promised great drama, which was not delivered, and it missed the real story. The headline, “Retirements Transform State Finance Agencies,” promises great drama. The primary agencies in the Finance Secretariat are the Department of Accounts (DOA), Department of the…
-
This Year the VRS “Diet COLA” Will Really Hurt
by Steve Haner The most recent year-over-year inflation measure approached 9%, with many key food or energy items growing in cost even faster. The official inflation estimate just used to increase the state’s gasoline taxes as of July 1 was 7%. So what inflation factor will be used to adjust state and local employee pensions…
-
Only Part of the Gas Tax Would Be Suspended
by Steve Haner The gas tax in Virginia today is 33.8 cents per gallon and the diesel tax is 34.7 cents per gallon. The fresh proposal from Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) for a 90-day suspension of those taxes does not eliminate Virginia’s full fuel tax bite. The oft-ignored wholesale tax will remain while only the…
-
More Legislating Through the Budget
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Since Governor Youngkin was successful in getting into the budget bill a provision establishing a criminal penalty for possession of more than four ounces of marijuana, he apparently has decided to go even further in using the budget bill as a means to amend the criminal code without having to go through…
-
You Just Paid More RGGI Tax, Virginians
by Steve Haner Last week Virginia collected another $76 million in carbon tax dollars through the ongoing Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative allowance auction. That was the sixth such sale since Virginia joined RGGI, and the state’s total tax take is now $378 million in 18 months. Do not for one minute allow yourself to be…
-
Legislators Deal Huge Blow to Upwardly Mobile Poor Kids
by James A. Bacon Anna Julia Cooper School was founded as a private, nonprofit middle school in 2009 in Richmond’s poverty-ridden East End. The first-year enrollment in the middle school was 29 students. The founders offered a proposition to students’ families: the school would charge no tuition, but parents had to be committed to the…
-
The Inner Circle Shrinks
by Dick Hall-Sizemore In recent years, 13 or 14 Virginia delegates and senators have held extraordinary power and have been the envy of their colleagues. (The total number and the size of the delegation from each house varied over the years.) They were the conferees on the budget bill and they had the power to…
-
School Choice Tax Credits Reduced in New Budget
by Steve Haner The famous phrase about no one’s life, liberty or property being safe while the legislature sits probably arose after somebody got burned by an out-of-control conference committee. It just happened again to Virginia’s private schools, who had a popular scholarship tax credit program chopped Wednesday. The Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit (EISTC)…