Category Archives: General Assembly

“School’s Closed Today! It’s the Law”

Posted on September 6, 2023 by | 27 comments

Photo credit: Your Teen Magazine

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Now that two of my grandchildren are in public school, rather than being home-schooled, I am more attuned to what is going on in public school.

Last Friday, I was in Northern Virginia visiting them because they were off from school. Although I was happy to get the extra time with them, I was ranting about the absurdity of a school holiday only two weeks after school had opened and in face of the impending Labor Day holiday. My grandson informed me it was the law. I protested that it couldn’t be, but he showed me that it was. Continue reading →

27 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), General Assembly

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POLLS: Inflation Top Issue; Virginians Reject Democrats’ Position on Abortion

Posted on September 6, 2023 by | 58 comments

by Shaun Kenney

New polling data from Founders Insight reveal that 24% of Virginians are putting inflation as their top concern heading into the November elections, with abortion coming in at 15% and split between Democrats and Republicans.

To make matters worse for Virginia Democrats, a summer spent pushing abortion rights has backfired spectacularly, as the Planned Parenthood life of 40 weeks (and beyond) is wildly unpopular with most Virginians.

Making matters worse, Planned Parenthood’s so-called “reproductive rights” state constitutional amendments such as the one in Ohio this year go even further, allowing not only for abortion up to the moment of birth, but even permitting gender reassignment surgeries alongside a repeal of parental notification and parental consent.

Virginia Democrats are not hiding the football on their abortion-up-to-birth ambitions, as they continue to bring the bill before the Virginia General Assembly whenever they get the chance. Continue reading →

58 Comments

Posted in Abortion, Business and Economy, Elections, General Assembly, Politics

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Legislature Moves To Fill Power Vacuum It Created

Posted on September 5, 2023 by | 20 comments

State Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, new Chairman of the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (Image: Virginia Star)

By Steve Haner

State Senator Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon, showed today that he had something which the State Corporation Commission now lacks – a quorum.  Surovell and the other legislators will gather in Richmond tomorrow to address the state budget but are expected once again to fail to fill the two vacancies on that vital regulatory body.

Surovell, however, was chosen this afternoon to chair the newly reconstituted Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR), a legislative oversight panel that has not met since December 2017 despite several tumultuous years of change in Virginia’s energy sector. The meeting lasted just a few minutes beyond one hour and never discussed the huge problem the legislators have created by refusing to elect new SCC regulators. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Energy, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Winsome Earle-Sears Makes the Case in Roanoke

Posted on September 4, 2023 by | 102 comments

Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears speaks in Vinton. Photo by Scott Dreyer.

by Scott Dreyer

On a late summer Thursday evening at the Vinton War Memorial Senior Center, the Roanoke County GOP met for a fundraiser barbecue dinner to support Sen. David Suetterlein’s fall campaign and to fire up the room full of party faithful.

Following the meal, several people on the ballot this fall introduced themselves and addressed some key issues facing the region and state.

But the Roanoke star that evening was Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Continue reading →

102 Comments

Posted in Elections, General Assembly, Politics

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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 →

7 Comments

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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Politicians Back Interest-Heavy Fuel Debt Payoff

Posted on September 1, 2023 by | 21 comments

Better yet, how about ten years from now? With a decade of interest added on, of course.

By Steve Haner

Several Virginia legislators have encouraged the State Corporation Commission to allow Dominion Energy Virginia to convert a $1.3 billion unpaid fuel debt into a ten-year revenue stream for the utility, adding up to $370 million in additional costs onto its customers.

The SCC will open a hearing Tuesday on the utility’s pending application to convert the unpaid fuel costs for the past three years into a bond. A public comment period on the application just ended, and four legislators and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce filed letters supporting Dominion’s request. The 2023 General Assembly created the bonding option during session as part of an omnibus regulatory change.

The issue is simple. Dominion failed to foresee the explosion in fuel costs caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the generalized wave of inflation. A year ago the SCC approved a plan to cover the first batch of those unpredicted costs that accrued through June 2022, with a three-year payoff schedule.

But the second year of unexpected fuel expenses added almost $700 million more to the unpaid balance by June 2023. Years two and three of the original payment schedule and the new additional costs combine to the total of about $1.275 billion, not including interest. And the interest is what this is all about, with the trade-off being smaller installment payments but a decade of interest charges. Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Consumer protection, Energy, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Schools Shouldn’t Open Before Labor Day

Posted on August 30, 2023 by | 41 comments

Oceanfront, Virginia Beach. Photo credit: Kerry Dougherty

by Kerry Dougherty

Better sit down, youngsters. Did you know you’ll only get OUT of school two days earlier than last year? Yep, your last day of classes is June 14, 2024. Last June you finished up on June 16th.

Joke’s on you. Oh, and the teachers who pushed for the new schedule believing they’d get an early start on summer.

Until 2019, Virginia’s public schools were prohibited from beginning before Labor Day. The law, nicknamed the “Kings Dominion Relief Act” was passed in 1986 to boost Virginia’s tourism industry, giving teens with summer jobs a chance to work through the traditional end of summer. Continue reading →

41 Comments

Posted in Economic development, Education (K-12), General Assembly, Labor & workforce

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Yes, Virginia Democrats Really Do Want Abortion Up to 40 Weeks (and Beyond)

Posted on August 30, 2023 by | 105 comments

by Shaun Kenney

This November in Ohio, a referendum measure will be on the ballot that will not only enshrine abortion as a state constitutional right — the measure will eliminate parental notification and parental consent on any and all decisions about sexuality and gender in language so broad that it encompasses not just abortion but transgenderism as a question of “reproductive rights” — and it is coming to Virginia.

The Ohio referendum is sponsored not only by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, but also by an organization called URGE, and is backed by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) — two groups whose interest in pushing transgenderism is upfront and clear.

Already, several Virginia Democrats running for public office have been open about their support for these referenda, many of which will be on the ballot in 2024 in the hopes that they will boost Democratic hopes in the presidential elections.

The good news in Virginia is that our reticence about referenda is a long-standing practice designed to allow cooler heads to prevail. The General Assembly must approve the referenda twice in concurrent sessions in order for such items to be on the ballot. Continue reading →

105 Comments

Posted in Abortion, Civil Rights, Culture wars, Elections, General Assembly, Virginia Law

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Democrats Cannot Hide From Vote to Ban Gas Cars

Posted on August 30, 2023 by | 108 comments

By Steve Haner

Yes, Virginia, the Democrats are coming for your gasoline and diesel powered cars. The only way to decouple Virginia from the California Air Resources Board’s relentless drive toward electric vehicles only on new car lots is to change the political landscape in Richmond and reverse a 2021 bill.

A Republican candidate for Virginia Senate used the illustration above to challenge his opponent, current Delegate Danica Roem (D-Manassas), now seeking a seat in the less numerous body. The blog Blue Virginia rushed to Roem’s defense. Here is the full link to the article so you can get the link and the tenor of the message all in one. Continue reading →

108 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Elections, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation

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All Hat, No Cattle

Posted on August 29, 2023 by | 69 comments

Governor Glenn Youngkin. Photo Credit: Associated Press

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

In Texas, the phrase, “all hat, no cattle” refers to someone who is all talk with little substance. Governor Glenn Youngkin is in the running for one of those hats.

The latest “Team Youngkin” fund-raising scare e-mail deals with fentanyl.

It starts off by recounting the number of fatal overdoses in Virginia attributable to fentanyl. That is why, the Governor says, “I didn’t hesitate when Governor Greg Abbott asked for additional resources to assist in critical border security efforts in Texas. I deployed the Virginia National Guard, and 100 brave Virginians answered the call to serve and protect our Commonwealth by going to Texas and joining the mission to stop fentanyl from flowing unabated into America.”

It is closer to home that Youngkin emphasizes the real problem. “Unfortunately, our efforts to punish the criminals who sell deadly fentanyl in our neighborhoods have been blocked by the far-left in control of the Virginia Senate.” He is referring to the Senate killing his legislation (SB 1490) that would have made anyone distributing a substance containing more than two milligrams of fentanyl, without the person obtaining the substance knowing that it contained fentanyl, guilty of attempted first-degree murder. If someone died from using that substance, the distributor would be guilty of first-degree murder. Continue reading →

69 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, General Assembly, Immigration, Politics

Which Virginia Taxes Have Grown and How Much

Posted on August 25, 2023 by | 39 comments

Click for larger view.

By Steve Haner

What a difference just four years has made in Virginia’s financial condition, with the state’s General Fund tax revenue having increased 31% during the period and its Commonwealth Transportation Fund revenue increasing by almost 36%. This is comparing the annual results for the fiscal years ending June 30, 2023, just released, and the same summary for the year ending June 30, 2019. Continue reading →

39 Comments

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

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Virginia’s Balance Sheet is Embarrassingly Strong

Posted on August 24, 2023 by | 34 comments

Virginia is floating on a sea of unspent cash, but tax relief fails again.

By Steve Haner

“Our balance sheet couldn’t be stronger…this is our moment to soar.”

So said Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin Wednesday. Every year, our governors come to the legislature to report on the end of the fiscal year financial result, and often they say something like that. They always prefer to bring a happy message over one of caution or doom.

This time, however, it is true. Continue reading →

34 Comments

Posted in Budgets, General Assembly, Taxes

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Virginia’s Schools Really Do Need More Money

Posted on August 22, 2023 by | 38 comments

by Suzanne Munson

Recent General Assembly debates about state budgets open a cornucopia of questions about the future of education in Virginia — charter schools, lab schools, vouchers, funding for religious schools? Now might be a good time to examine some background about public education in Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson proposed the state’s first legislation in support of universal education, for rich and poor alike, in 1779. He viewed pubic education as necessary for an informed, successful democratic republic: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.”

As school funding involved tax dollars, well-to-do Virginia legislators ignored Jefferson’s appeal for decades. Meanwhile, our neighbors to the north were educating their populace. It would take a Civil War and its aftermath for this state to develop a nascent system of public education.

Today, Virginia’s school divisions across the board receive 14% less funding from the state than the 50-state average, equal to about $1,900 less per student. This is neither admirable nor sensible, if we are to have a successful economy, students trained for challenging work, and an informed electorate.
Continue reading →

38 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Business and Economy, Education (K-12), General Assembly

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Cruise Subsidy More Important Than Tax Relief?

Posted on August 20, 2023 by | 32 comments

What is this cruise ship doing in a story about Virginia’s budget and tax fight? Read and learn.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has obtained and released the most recent negotiating offer from Democrats in the Senate as the standoff between the two political parties over the state budget continues.  It is contained in an on-line article that doesn’t appear to have made it into the print edition yet. Continue reading →

32 Comments

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

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Virginia’s New “The Stupid Party”

Posted on August 19, 2023 by | 44 comments

by Chris Braunlich

From the ‘50s to the mid-‘70s, the Republican Party was known as “the stupid party” – locked in the past, making foolish decisions, promoting unwise and counterproductive policies.

Today, in Virginia, “the stupid party” has returned. But it is no longer Republican.

The current battle over Virginia’s budget and the prospects for tax reduction and reform affirms the Left’s governing philosophy: what the government has belongs to the government and what the taxpayer has is negotiable.

With a $5.1 billion surplus exceeding the last fiscal year’s projections, Governor Glenn Youngkin proposes to return $1 billion — less than 20 percent — to the taxpayers from whom it came, in the form of permanent rate reform. He would spend the remainder on education, behavioral health, law enforcement and other projects. Senate Democrats, on the other hand, want to spend all of it, offering, at best, a one-time rebate giving them “first dibs” on future excessive tax revenue. Continue reading →

44 Comments

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

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