Gov. Terry McAuliffe and House Appropriations Committee Chairman S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, reportedly spoke privately by phone to close a $2.4 billion shortfall in the state budget. The two agreed to spare K-12 education spending and an economic development fund while using reserve funds and a 3 percent across-the-board cut to balance the budget. This being Virginia, we're not even shocked.
But as alarming as backroom negotiations over a public budget are — and they most assuredly are — we have to wonder how a spending plan passed only months earlier proved to be so inaccurate. How did revenue forecasts so wildly miss the mark?
Daily Press
Byron Marshall’s mysterious departure as Richmond’s chief administrative officer serves as a metaphor for Richmond’s government generally and for the stadium proposed for Shockoe Bottom more specifically. Insiders may not know what is going on; the citizenry does not have a clue.Members of Richmond’s City Council did not learn the details in an open session, either. They signed confidentiality statements before receiving a briefing. Reva Trammel declined to sign away her right to keep her constituents informed of city business. She made the proper call, which is an assertion we seldom make. The council as a whole should have risen against this abuse of power.
Times-Dispatch
Sadly, the latest revelations in the case of Charlottesville’s voter registrar show an additional lapse. For years, Sheri Iachetta had allowed the city to pay for cellphones for two former associates, long after they no longer were part of the registrar’s office. One of those associates was her husband. New information contradicts her previous statement on that particular phone. Initially, she indicated she regularly had been paying for her husband’s phone out of her own pocket. We now know that is not true. Records show she reimbursed the city for that cellphone usage only last month.
Daily Progress
Why the lack of participation? At least on the state level, a study from the College of William and Mary points to how the districts are set up. First, it’s not as easy for Virginia lawmakers to attract a large number of voters, who usually turn out only for Presidential campaigns and then vote all the way down the ticket. Virginia selects its General Assembly members normally in “off years,” when there’s no big Presidential or Congressional races to draw people out. And without some type of motivation, people here in the Valley stay home in large numbers. In a city with 12,256 voters, Waynesboro recorded one of the lowest turnouts in history this May, with just 2.9 percent or 356 people coming out to the polls. For some would be politicians, it’s hard to get motivated with such a small turnout. Second, some politicians complain that the legislative redistricting, which decides who can vote for which race, generally makes things easier for the incumbent. The problem with all that is by not voting or not entering a race, people turn the power over to others.
News Virginian