Category Archives: Finance (government)

Virginia’s “Runaway” Budget Negotiators

Posted on September 14, 2023 by | 4 comments

by Derrick A. Max

(This column was first published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy)

Fear of commitment is a common theme in Hollywood — where romantic comedies are replete with characters that sidestep long-term commitment primarily out of fear that someone better may come along. Think of Runaway Bride, where Maggie, played by Julia Roberts, keeps running away from her betrothed at the altar out of such fear.

The budget amendments passed last Wednesday with bipartisan support and praise from Governor Youngkin are replete with commitment issues. The approved tax cuts and new spending were written to have very little impact beyond the current budget cycle. Like Maggie, both Governor Youngkin and the Senate Democrats are clearly standing at the budget altar hoping for better options after the November elections. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Business and Economy, Economic development, Elections, Finance (government), General Assembly, Politics, Taxes

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The Virginia State Budget and the Rising Costs of Registered Nurses

Posted on September 4, 2023 by | 7 comments

by James C. Sherlock

I was asked yesterday by a reader about the relationship between nursing homes, rising registered nurse salaries and the new Virginia budget agreement.

Good questions. Virginia’s workforce includes nearly 70,000 registered nurses.

The state pays its workers, but it also pays its Medicaid share for private sector nurses. Pay for private sector workers is based upon market conditions. The market wage for registered nurses nationwide increased dramatically during COVID.

Perhaps the only good thing to come out of that mess was that registered nurses, of whom Virginia has 11% fewer than demand calculated by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, got very large pay and bonus raises, and the new wage points appear to have stuck.

If the laws of economics work here, that will over time increase the number of nurses if we can educate and train them in the required numbers.

The latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for all states show that the median wage for an RN in Virginia was $79,700 a year. In Northern Virginia portion of the D.C. metro area, the median was $92,800.  The underlying data are a couple of years old.

Wages and bonuses can vary a lot among Virginia hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, nursing school staff and government employees, and are higher or lower depending on specialty. The private sector offers $10,000 to  $20,000 signing bonuses paid out after the first year.

Employers of course must pay payroll taxes and other expenses related to employees, and thus their costs will generally exceed $100,000 per RN.

Virginia RNs are still underpaid compared to national figures. The mean annual wage for America’s 3 million registered nurses in May was $89,010 compared to Virginia’s $79,900.

The federal Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services, aware of some of the questionable business models of bad actors in the nursing home industry, published last week a proposed rule to both increase the minimum number of RNs in nursing facilities and to require all nursing facilities to reveal every year how much of the Medicare and Medicaid payouts go to salaries and related expenses.

So, Medicare and Medicaid costs will go up yet again. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Change Management, Federal, Finance (government), General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Labor & workforce, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Medicaid, Regulation

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Is Hopewell the Next Petersburg?

Posted on July 20, 2023 by | 32 comments

Downtown Hopewell. Photo credit: Richmond BizSense

by James A. Bacon

Long-time Bacon’s Rebellion readers will remember the fiscal saga of Petersburg, a struggling rust-belt city whose finances were so mismanaged that the city had to call in outside consultants to fix them. The City of Hopewell, another struggling rust-belt industrial town, may be facing the same fate. City Council has appointed Concetta Manker — its former information technology manager — to lead a financial turnaround.

Finances had deteriorated to the point where Virginia State Secretary of Finance Stephen Cummings ordered an outside audit and outlined steps the city should take to get back on track. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Cummings stressed the need to bring in experienced help to get the municipality’s books in order. He even offered $200,000 to help the city find such an executive.

But Council voted “no” yesterday on the idea, and elevated Manker, who was serving as interim city manager, to step into the role officially. Manker’s job would be tough under any circumstances: the city with a population of 23,000 cannot take on debt because it hasn’t even had a credit rating since 2017. Making the challenge even greater, her professional background is IT, not finance. Continue reading →

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Posted in Finance (government)

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Check Out Which New Virginia Laws Go Into Effect July 1st

Posted on June 30, 2023 by | 11 comments

by The Republican Standard staff

The Virginia General Assembly passed several small bills due to the split between the Republican-led House of Delegates and the Democratic-controlled Virginia State Senate. Yet the areas where they did find co-operation could matter to many Virginians as we head into Fourth of July weekend.

Enhanced Penalties for Fentanyl Manufacturing or Distribution
Reeves SB1188 Senate 35-5 House 50-42
Provides that any person who knowingly and intentionally manufactures or knowingly and intentionally distributes a weapon of terrorism when such person knows that such weapon of terrorism is, or contains, any mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of fentanyl is guilty of a Class 4 felony.

Universal Occupational License Recognition
McDougle SB1213 Senate 40-0 House 99-0
Establishes criteria for an individual licensed, certified, or having work experience in another state to apply to a regulatory board within the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation and be issued an occupational license or government certification if certain conditions are met.

Police Chiefs May Enact Local Curfews during Disturbances
Norment SB1455 Senate 27-12 House 53-45
Enables the chief law-enforcement officer of a locality to enact a curfew under certain circumstances during a civil disturbance.

Making Sure Every District has a Legislator
Suetterlein SB944 Senate 39-0 House 99-0
Requires special elections to fill a vacancy in the membership of the General Assembly be held within 30 days of the vacancy if the vacancy occurs or will occur between December 10 and March 10 which coincides with time right before and during the General Assembly session. Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Economic development, Elections, Finance (government), General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Government workers and pensions, Law enforcement, Politics, Regulation, Uncategorized, Virginia Law

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Light Rail: Idiotic Idea In 2016. Idiotic Idea Now.

Posted on June 16, 2023 by | 4 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Virginia Beach voters THOUGHT they drove a stake through the heart of the absurd plan to bring light rail to the city after an overwhelming vote in 2016 against the nutty, developer-driven boondoggle.

But never underestimate cultists with an agenda. You know, developers who believe taxpayers have a duty to open their wallets to help THEM get rich. Or climate kooks who don’t understand a cost/benefit analysis.

No surprise, then, they’re back. Some shadowy online group is beginning to push a bad idea that was buried in a landslide 7 years ago.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Economic development, Finance (government), Infrastructure, Money in politics, Uncategorized

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Major Actions to Reduce Corporate Overhead Offer Lessons and Opportunities to Virginia Government

Posted on May 16, 2023 by | 27 comments

Courtesy Wall Street Journal

by James C. Sherlock

The chart above shows that management and administrative overhead growth has been a trend not limited to government. The difference is that corporations are making quick and decisive strides in reversing the trend.

It is axiomatic that government should minimize overhead to maximize efficiency in delivery of services. And to lower its costs.

Efficiencies need to be found:

  • to maximize value for citizens;
  • to speed decision-making;
  • to minimize administrative consumption of the time and attention of front line workers; and
  • to restore freedom of speech suppressed by government bureaucracies assembled for that purpose.

All senior government managers would sign up for those goals — as theory. But execution is hard. Internal pressures against change are seldom exceeded by external ones that demand it.

An excellent report in the Wall Street Journal makes an observation that they may wish to consult for inspiration.

Companies are rethinking the value of many white-collar roles, in what some experts anticipate will be a permanent shift in labor demand that will disrupt the work life of millions of Americans whose jobs will be lost, diminished or revamped partly through the use of artificial intelligence.

‘We may be at the peak of the need for knowledge workers,’ said Atif Rafiq, a former chief digital officer at McDonald’s and Volvo. ‘We just need fewer people to do the same thing.’

Continue reading →

27 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Change Management, Efficiency in government, Finance (government), General Assembly, Governance, Government workers and pensions, Labor & workforce, Public employee unions

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As U.S. Teeters On the Brink of Recession, Virginia Beach Hikes Taxes

Posted on May 11, 2023 by | 12 comments

Clouds gather over Va Beach. (Bob Rayner)

by Kerry Dougherty

Do you mind if I’m brutally honest for a minute? Good. Because there’s no stopping me today.

Any member of the Virginia Beach City Council majority who voted Tuesday to approve an obscene $2.5 billion budget as the country teeters on the edge of a recession is a liar if they try to tell you they didn’t raise taxes.

I mean it. Join me in calling them LIARS.

While it’s true these politicians left the tax RATE alone, assessments jumped an average of 9%, with some of us seeing much sharper increases.

That means almost every homeowner in Virginia Beach just got a big fat tax hike. Combine that with an inflation rate of about 5%and the average working family trying to stay above water in the resort city is drowning.
Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Economic development, Efficiency in government, Finance (government), Governance, Housing, Recession, Taxes, Uncategorized

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Is Stingy State Funding to Blame for UVa Tuition Increases?

Posted on May 8, 2023 by | 26 comments


by James A. Bacon

In explaining the cause of rising tuition & fees at the University of Virginia, we described last week how the driving force over the past 20 years has been a relentless increase in spending. Expenditures in the academic division of the University of Virginia, fueled by an expansion in salaries, increased 135% between 2002 and 2022, far outpacing the 59% rise in the Consumer Price Index and 20% increase in enrollment.

But that’s not the whole story. While expenditures were surging, state support for UVa and other public universities in the Old Dominion lagged far behind. Colleges and universities, the higher-ed lobby has argued, have had little choice but to offset public parsimony by raising tuition & fees.

A Jefferson Council analysis suggests that there is some truth to this assertion at UVa but it falls woefully short in explaining the ascent of tuition & fees to stratospheric levels. After adjusting for inflation and enrollment growth, roughly 30% of the tuition hikes have offset the decline in state funding while 70% went toward higher spending.

While coping with stagnant state funding, UVa presidents and Boards of Visitors looked to increased gifts and higher tuition to pay for their aggressive spending increases. Gifts have surged over the 20-year period and now equal state support as a source of funding at UVa. But the bulk of new revenue has come from tuition hikes. Continue reading →

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Posted in Education (higher ed), Finance (government)

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Sens. Warner, Kaine Visit Roanoke To Tout New Bridge But City Council In The Dark About Scope of Project

Posted on April 15, 2023 by | 5 comments

by Scott Dreyer

On a picture-perfect April 12 with a backdrop of the sparkling Roanoke River and dogwoods and redbuds in bloom, Virginia’s Senator Mark Warner (D) and Senator Tim Kaine (D) visited the Roanoke Greenway at Roanoke City’s Smith Park.

The occasion was for the two senators to present a cardboard poster representing a check to Roanoke City for $2.5 million for the replacement of the low water bridge on the popular Greenway just a few yards downstream from Smith Park. The senators stated the funds came from the roughly $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.

An email invitation from the City to reporters claimed the new, higher bridge will not only allow kayakers to travel under the bridge unimpeded (at low water levels) but also help the endangered Roanoke logperch swim up and downstream more easily.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Economic development, Efficiency in government, Finance (government), Planning, Taxes, Uncategorized

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Dionysian Rites at a Spotsylvania County School Board Meeting

Posted on April 6, 2023 by | 24 comments

Dionysos, god of the theater and of the grape harvest

by James C. Sherlock

The FY 2023 budget for Spotsylvania County was $341,355,792.

In increasing the 2022 budget, the Supervisors transferred an additional $5.8 million to schools to “Address the Commitment to Educational Opportunities.”

That brought the total transfer to schools to $138,081,416 including that $5.8 million (4.4%) increase.

It was pointed out offhandedly in that FY 2023 budget document that $5.65 million equated “to a little more than three pennies on the real estate tax rate.”

Furthermore:

Most recently in FY 2021, the Schools were allocated ARPA funding in the amount of $22.68 million which Schools’ staff expects to be spent over three fiscal years (FY 2022, FY 2023, and FY 2024) to enhance the learning environment, enhance instructional planning, and enhance learning and growth.

But never mind.

Last night, in what Fox5 described as a “chaotic and disruptive” school board meeting, teeth were reportedly gnashed and garments rent over a potential, not yet an actual, reduction of $5.2 million in state funding for Spotsylvania County schools in FY 2024.

There were lots of interruptions and disagreement between the audience and school board members.

The festival at the school board meeting had an ancient Greek tone to it. Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Education (K-12), Finance (government), General Assembly

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Langley Looks to the Moon

Posted on April 4, 2023 by | 16 comments

by Robin Beres

While mainstream media may be transfixed by the gutter politics going on in New York, exciting, uplifting events are happening in other parts of the nation — including in our very own little city of Hampton.

Located on Hampton’s Langley Air Force Base just off the Chesapeake Bay, the Langley Research Center is NASA’s oldest field center. Established in 1917, the 764-acre facility consists of nearly 200 separate facilities and employs around 3,400 civil servants and contractors.

In the early 1960s Langley was a top contender to be named NASA’s Mission Control Center for manned space flights. But because the Hampton facility was so close to Washington, and Hampton Roads was already home to both military and civilian aerospace and aviation communities, NASA selected Johnson Space Center in Houston over Langley.

Although missing out on the Manned Spacecraft Center, Langley has nonetheless continued to play a vital role in the research and training that has made every space mission from Gemini I to Artemis successful. The historic research facility has had countless scientific breakthroughs and historic firsts. The first crews of astronauts were trained there. Langley’s Rendezvous and Docking Simulator trained both Gemini and Apollo astronauts. It is where the Apollo Lunar Module was tested.

Scientists at the center were instrumental in the development of supersonic flight. Researchers there created the world’s first transonic wind tunnel and developed today’s international standard for grooved airport runways. And, if you saw the fabulous — and true — movie, Hidden Figures, you know that those incredible women worked at Langley.

Today, Langley is very much involved in NASA’s plans to put humans on the moon — and eventually on Mars. The space agency’s Moon to Mars program is no longer just a dream or a science fiction story in Popular Mechanics. The Artemis space program is moving rapidly forward on several goals which include putting a base on the moon and eventually landing humans on Mars.
Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Business and Economy, Economic development, Finance (government), Labor & workforce, Science & Technology, Uncategorized

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Virginia Municipal Bond Issuers Face Higher Costs for Borrowing

Posted on April 3, 2023 by | Leave a comment

by James C. Sherlock

People learn — and relearn- – things over time about investing.

One of the things they have learned over the past three years about investing in municipal bonds, as with all bonds, is that, having experienced the effects of inflation risk for the first time in decades, they will want a higher coupon next time.

Issuing new ones, especially revenue bonds, is likely to prove significantly more expensive than in the past few decades.

Tough market.

That chart is a little tough to read, but it shows that the annualized return on Virginia municipal bonds over the past three-year period is 0.17%.

Total return, tax adjusted, was down 7.36% in calendar year 2022.  If you were a seller, the market price was down 36%.

Using the muni market to fund local government projects and even non-governmental projects like hospital expansions that have access to the muni market will be more expensive, at least for a while.

So, of course, will labor, land, construction-equipment leasing, and construction products and materials.

Reflecting the higher costs to issuers, U.S. municipal securities issuance dropped 20%, from $483 billion in FY 21 to $387 billion in FY 22, while trading volume, reflecting nervous investors, nearly doubled over the same period. Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Finance (government)

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RVA 5×5: RVA = DIY

Posted on March 4, 2023 by | 5 comments

by Jon Baliles

Jack Jacobs at Richmond Biz Sense has an update about the ongoing fallout from the collapse of the Enrichmond Foundation last summer. All of the small organizations that used Enrichmond as a fiduciary lost access to their money (which may be gone for good; stay tuned) and other things like insurance coverage.

While there are efforts underway to transfer two historically Black cemeteries formerly under Enrichmond’s purview to the city, there has not been any statement, hint, clue, concern, or any sign of emotion uttered by the Mayor about when or if the city will help restore the funding of these small groups that do a lot of valuable work to help the City and save staff time.

Since no one at City Hall seems to be interested in helping, Richmonders are doing what they do best — they are doing it themselves (aka DIY).

For example, the group RVA Clean Sweep counts nearly 1,500 people who support it by going around the city picking up trash. They lost their insurance coverage and about $3,000 when Enrichmond folded. Have they quit trying to help clean up the city? Nope.

They held fewer cleanups and told volunteers to be extra careful as they were volunteering without insurance, but they still kept cleaning and sweeping. But no insurance means they were not able to apply for grants or hold as many cleanups as they would like, according to RVA Clean Sweep Director Amy Robins.

But they still held cleanups because they wanted their volunteers to stay engaged. “Robins feared that a prolonged hiatus on activity would cause volunteers to drift away from the cause of cleaning up litter in the city,” wrote Jacobs.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Charity and philanthropy, Economic development, Efficiency in government, Environment, Finance (government), Leadership, Planning, Uncategorized, Volunteering

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Public Hearing, Private Decision

Posted on March 1, 2023 by | 14 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

The Bluestone Town Center (BTC), according to council members who voted 3-2 to approve it, was decided in secret meetings between those council members and the applicants. At Tuesday’s open meeting in which they voted to approve BTC, those council members rather shamelessly admitted to those sessions.

City staff and the city manager effectively sat on their hands during the discussion, which brought questionable numbers and questionable rhetoric from rookie council members Dany Fleming and Monica Robinson, respectively. It was left to Councilman Chris Jones and Mayor Deanna Reed to present the arguments against the development with an assist from City Attorney Chris Brown.

The city manager was mostly silent throughout the conversation.

Also mostly silent was Councilwoman Laura Dent. She made the motion to grant the rezoning BTC sought, and followed the motion with a rambling explanation of what she seemed to say was one of the best things about the project for her, the promise of solar energy panels. Her motion effectively released the developers from their legally binding proffer to provide the panels, but she said she believed they would be installed anyway based on her private discussions with the developers. Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Economic development, Finance (government), Governance, Housing, Land use & development, Open Government, Uncategorized

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Richmond’s Skinny Budget: Low Stakes Poker, High Stakes Rhetoric

Posted on February 27, 2023 by | 9 comments

by Shaun Kenney

Virginia’s General Assembly managed to pass the Richmond equivalent of a continuing resolution to fund the government until Senate Democrats and House Republicans can hammer out a compromise on corporate tax breaks.

One will have to pardon me for not getting terribly wound up about tax breaks for corporations while small businesses and working families are struggling with back-to-back  years of 9 percent inflation from Washington.

Meanwhile, much of the damage done by the Northam administration with regard to Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirements, gender ideology, and the long litany of progressive efforts to remake Virginia were left both untouched and unchallenged.

Even school choice — the marquee legislation championed by Lt. Governor Winsome Sears — was left to die in committee.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are promising a “brick wall” against House Republicans until they get what they want — in other words, reneging on the pledge from conferees to honor a $950 million tax cut. The stopgap fixes the $200 million shortfall snafu created by the Virginia Department of Education’s spreadsheet, puts another $25 million into the Virginia Retirement System, and another $100 million towards cost overruns for existing building infrastructure. What mystifies most is that the Senate Democrats haven’t been precisely clear on what they want beyond platitudes for higher salaries for bureaucrats, public education, higher education, etc. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Culture wars, Efficiency in government, Elections, Finance (government), General Assembly, Governance, Government workers and pensions, Leadership, Taxes, Uncategorized

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