Bacon's Rebellion

It’s football and economic development in today’s papers.

In the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mark Warner’s record on economic development is reviewed by reporter Greg Edwards. Almost uniformly, local and state officials offer praise, especially for the outgoing Governor’s efforts in attracting businesses to Southside and Southwest.

Also in the T-D, Secretary of Commerce and Trade Michael J. Schewel is confirmed as leaving his post to return to private law practice. There had been conflicting reports about his plans. A new Secretary will probably be named this week by Governor-elect Kaine.

Sticking with the theme of economic development in Virginia’s less prosperous areas, Washington Post reporter Ellen McCarthy left the hustle and bustle of Metro DC for the wide-open spaces of Lebanon in Russell County, where CGI-AMS and Northrop Grumman will locate new high-tech facilities that are the crown jewels of the Warner record. Naturally, the locals are thrilled and the transformation potential is viewed as great.

Worthy of discusssion, however, is this snippet:

In fact, the tech companies that line the overflowing roads of Northern Virginia have thousands of open jobs they can’t fill. The job market in Washington is so tight, companies regularly pay bonuses and inflated salaries to recruit employees with technical skills, even though the work required to develop new software programs has become increasingly routine. Banks and insurance firms long ago cut their software development costs by shipping the work to India and China, but legal restrictions and the politics of government procurement have prevented federal contractors from following suit.

So they are looking at rural America instead — to places where rents are cheap, traffic is light and, instead of companies being forced to offer bonuses or poach employees from a competitor, rsums [sic] pour in by the dozen.

Are there issues with rural Virginia being America’s “India?”

The average salary for the 300 people CGI-AMS expects to hire in Lebanon, for instance, will be $50,000 — far above the town’s $27,606 average annual wage but about half the salary an advanced software developer in Northern Virginia might earn.

Given the apparently dire employment situation in NVA, shouldn’t we be seeing companies not involved in state contracting moving to less populated areas in Virginia?

The move of software developers and some other more routine jobs “will be a growing pattern,” said Anirban Basu, an economist and chief executive of the Sage Policy Group. “The Washington-area cost structure is pushing jobs out of the region.”

Or, are the CGI-AMS and Northrop Grumman deals essentially expensive “bones” thrown to make a particular deal?

Donna S. Morea, president of CGI-AMS, said the [state] contract had no bearing on the decision to locate in Lebanon. A $4.5 million incentive package put together by local and state officials, however, was taken into consideration, she said.

Washington Post reporter Stephanie McCrummen remains camped out in Manassas, covering the fall-out from her exposure of the city’s restrictive zoning ordinance. There’s a lonely protester and suggestions that the ordinance may be challenged in court by organizations such as the ACLU.

Bacon’s Rebellion will continue to follow this story.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a fascinating peek into the pay of Virginia college and university presidents. Reporter Andrew Petkofsky also provides some insight into the nature of the job.

What struck me was the relatively equal pay levels for presidents provided by the state. With only a few anomalies, such as at Norfolk State, presidents receive similar compensation. The largest part of presidential salary and perks are paid to the presidents by private groups.

It’s a tough job with a complex array of responsibilities. In a probably unfortunate similarity to politicians, the presidents appear to be forced to spend an inordinate amount of time on fundraising-related activities.

In comparison to CEOs or football coaches, the pay is relatively modest, but, considering the whole package, I think it’s about right.

Not long ago, Bacon’s Rebellion invited readers to “blog the budget.” Melanie Scarborough of the Washington Post rings in the new year today with a slash and burn op-ed excorciating “tax and spend” Republicans.

Scarborough has reviewed the budget and lists a few choice targets:

Why, for instance, are operating costs for the Department of Education’s central office expanding so rapidly — from $78 million in 2003 to $112 million this year to $126 million next year?

What is the justification for spending $7 million a year to educate 84 students at the Virginia School for the Deaf, Blind and Multi-Disabled at Hampton when, for about $82,000 a student, it surely would be cheaper to hire a tutor for each student?

Did anyone ask taxpayers if they want to fund a new visitors area at Bland Correctional Center so that criminals can entertain their guests in style?

Good questions. I suspect we’ll do another round here of “blog the budget,” including highlighting the comments we got the first time around.

Yesterday’s Daily Progress had a David Hendrick story on Lee and Paulette Albright of Montebello. They’re the couple whose dogged determination to get answers and information from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries resulted in the exposure of questionable management practices and questionable expenditures, not to mention the resignation of several high (and high-flying)officials.

I didn’t think the DGIF story got enough play in the media. With a Governor at 70% plus approval and Virginia being named the “Best Managed” state, there wasn’t much of a market for a contrarian story. It’s a shame, if my instincts are correct, that when things are going well for an administration, “small” problems get swept under the rug, but when things are unraveling, everything is breathlessly covered. The problems at DGIF did not begin overnight–they spanned Republican and Democratic administrations. “Problems” and “scandals” ought to be covered and assessed fairly, regardless of who is in office at the time. The objective is good, responsive government, not assigning partisan blame absent cover-up or failure to acknowledge and correct mistakes.

Anyway, I’m glad the Albrights never gave up, despite the expenses and frustrations they encountered, so I nominate them for “Virginia Citizens of the Year.” Although the Warner Administration never much responded to the DGIF situation publicly, Gov. Warner eventually took the strong action that was needed, installing Col. Massengill to clean the place up. It was one of his finer moments.

We all should oversee state government, not to harass or impede, but to demonstrate that we expect good management and accountability. Little things, spread across the wide swath of state agencies, add up to real money. My New Year’s wish for Governor-elect Kaine is that he will imbue the leaders he chooses for state agencies with a public service commitment, extracting a pledge from them to provide efficient and effective government services on behalf of the taxpayers.

We haven’t had any fun here in a while and Jim appears to be away, so I offer a list of headlines we might see in 2006:

Kaine Takes Smart Car to Transportation Town Hall, Arrives Late

Historian: Source of Transportation Crisis Faulty Human Settlement Patterns at Jamestown

[Feel free to add your own headlines in the comments, as ace poster subpatre did!]

Today’s Times-Dispatch brings news that the tolls on Central Virginia’s premier public-private toll road, the Pocahontas Parkway, are going up again. There was a comparable increase in 2004. The chicken and egg debate over lower traffic counts and higher rates can continue, but somebody has to pay the debt. The engineering behind that flyover bridge off I-95 is breathtaking, but the economics were always questionable on this one — at least until there is a direct connection spur to the airport.

If someone uses that highway both ways everyday their cost just went up about $120 a year. Just for the sake of comparison, for a person or family who uses 1,200 gallons of gasoline a year, a ten cent increase in the state motor fuel tax would cost $120 (ten bucks a month). For a half-penny increase in the sales tax to cost a family that much, it would have to have taxable purchases of $2,000 a month — which would put them pretty high up the economic scale.

In the privately-managed, toll-based vision of our transportation future, Pocahontas and its sister toll roads will be the rule, not the exception. And that extra quarter might come at three or four places along your route.

I’m not saying which is better — taxes or tolls. (At least not for this post.) But at some point we’ve got to debate this. At some point we’ve got to ask, just how much are we willing to pay in other ways in order to maintain one of the lowest fuel tax rates in the country?

The Washington Post, a step or two behind Bacon’s Rebellion, has an editorial this morning denouncing the City of Manassas for its anti-immigrant zoning policy that redefines the concept of “family.”

America was built on diversity, and to mount a campaign of harassment against it, as Manassas has done, dishonors the nation’s immigrant tradition as well as constitutional protections.

Stephanie McCrummen, the Post reporter whose story exposed the human consequences of the policy, has a follow-up story today where city officials, while refusing to return phone calls, issued a defense of their policy.

Daniel LeBlanc, President of the Virginia AFL-CIO and Democratic Party activist, is the new Secretary of the Commonwealth. If Governor-elect Kaine wants someone to enforce party and ideological discipline on appointments, LeBlanc’s probably a good choice.

NBC-12 in Richmond is reporting that Professor Larry Sabato thinks LeBlanc might be controversial. Imagine the effect on Virginia if notaries public unionize.

[Thanks to one our many anonymi for correcting me on the plural of notary public. See comments.]

The Washington Post‘s local technology columnist, Ellen McCarthy, has a short profile today of Aneesh Chopra, the incoming Secretary of Technology in the Kaine Administration. The tone appears be one of skepticism as to whether Chopra can fill the shoes of the current secretary, Eugene Huang. As far as I could see, Huang’s shoes were usually in front of some reporter, straining to get more wunderkid coverage.

McCarthy gets good quote from the first ever technology secretary:

Donald W. Upson, the technology secretary under Gov. James S. Gilmore III, said Chopra will have a steep learning curve. “He’s got a lack of experience, that’s against him, but if he recognizes that and uses that office to bring people together, he can make a difference — I hope he does,” Upson said.

Ah, yes, technology is all about bringing people together, especially if they’re big IT consultants who might hire you when your term is up.

Chopra has his feet firmly on the ground, however:

Chopra concedes that he’s not an expert on the inner workings of technical systems. “What I brought to the table was an understanding of the capabilities of new technologies and how they might advance a particular agenda,” he said.

I think that’s a good attitude. New technologies aren’t about “gee whiz,” they’re about doing things better, faster, and with easy accessibility.

Here’s my advice for Chopra–call up Jim Bacon and sit down for an interview on your preliminary concept of the job and the challenges. Don’t let this unfounded skepticism fester. Take command of the agenda. You will face a lot of tough questions about the outsourcing deal your predecessors left.

The job security of local government managers is notoriously subject to the whims of elected boards and councils. Firings occur fairly regularly for poor performance, alleged malfeasance, or just plain old “personality conflicts.” Luckily, these local government managers usually land on their feet somewhere else.

Here’s a Roanoke Times story of redemption for one fired local official.

This apparently new Roanoke.com column is just getting around to noticing Barnie Day and Becky Dale‘s Notes from the Sausage Factory, available, of course, at Bacon’s Rebellion. College courses are apparently using the book, although Professor Sabato was not mentioned.

Michael Hardy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch is reporting that Governor-elect Tim Kaine will name Del. Viola Baskerville as Secretary of Administration. Del. Baskerville, a member of Kaine’s transition team, brings a unique skill set the cabinet: three term delegate, city council member, lawyer, mediation and conflict resolution specialist, and, of course, William and Mary graduate.

What she also brings that one seldom sees in a cabinet appointment is a long record of advocacy for something she will now have the opportunity to implement. Ms. Baskerville has been a critic of Virginia’s record on providing contracting opportunities to small, women, and minority-owned businesses. She has called for set-asides. As Secretary of Administration, she will control the Department of General Services and, with it, the state’s procurement program.

It will be interesting to see what she can do with her issue from the “inside.”

Rather than implement a family neutral rule on occupancy limits in residential housing, the Washington Post reports today that the City of Manassas has implemented an ordinance that sets a new government definition of family that says a nephew is not a family member. The new rule would allow a mother and father and 16 children to live in a 5 bedroom house, but prohibits a mother, father, two sons, a nephew, a roomer and his girlfriend from occupying the same residence. And, the ordinance is enforced primarily based on complaints. Surprise… most complaints have been against Latinos, who among other things come from a culture in which extended families often live together.

You can understand why the woman and her husband featured in the story (both now citizens who are immigrants) might be confused about why their “family” can’t live together but another “family” can (even if that family is significantly larger).

“Considering, though, that every house on her block more or less resembles hers, and considering that she has only seven people living in a five-bedroom house, she was suspicious about why she was singled out. As far as she knew, she and her husband were just doing what any normal family would do to make it.”

If crowding or multiple cars are the problems they can be addressed by neutral rules that apply equally to all.

The effect of the ordinance on this hard working immigrant family is to require them to sell their $270,000 house (mortgage $3500) and become renters.

Here’s how the city official explains the change in the ordinance:

Then Brian Smith, chief building official, stood up to explain the new concept in town: consanguinity.

Under the city’s old, broad definition of family, just about any group of relatives, however distantly related, was allowed to share a single-family house, along with one unrelated person.

The problem with that, Smith explained, was that when inspectors responded to a complaint, they often found houses full of aunts, uncles, cousins and extended relatives but no violations, because the total number was below the occupancy limit.

“We were stymied by families who met the existing definition,” Smith said. And so the city changed the rules to break up more households.

If homeowners don’t exceed the occupancy limit in their residence, why is the City interested in breaking up their household? If the occupancy limits were too high, why weren’t they lowered? If this isn’t a safety issue, what is the issue? Demand on services? Oh, I get it, an aunt or a nephew demands more services than a child or a parent?

Rules that are not neutral; disparate enforcement against Latinos; perhaps the City official should have said “homogeneity” instead of “consanguinity”?

After the uplifting stories of nationally certified teachers in Bristol, Michael Hardy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports the Virginia Education Association’s 2006 legislative agenda. The VEA basically just wants more money for teachers–bring salaries up to the national average and improve retirement benefits. Oh, and raise the speed limit for school buses, too.

Now I happen to believe teachers should be paid more, but in tandem with paring of bloated school bureaucracies and more attention to “pay for performance,” like the bonuses offered to nationally certified teachers. The VEA has nothing on those issues, issues that animate a not insignificant number of Virginians. They reinterate their opposition to voucher programs, another area that many believe might end up actually improving public schools.

To their credit, the VEA has their website poll on the subject of national certification and indicate that they helped preserve the incentive pay for those teachers obtaining national certification. The VEA, like so many advocacy organizations, “preaches to the choir” too much and refuses to seriously consider opposing ideas. They’d help their members more if they did.