Regarding today's budget cut announcment. (Richmond: lease, school, DMV)

[Rhett_Butler]

Originally Posted by springgrl

Yup, cut education but, by all means re-open the rest areas so people don't have to get off at some other place (hah: there is a lit. and fig. element to that)...

Glad I wasn't the only one to notice that... Oooo yeah. Thank GOODNESS we got those rest stops re-opened. Education? meh...

[CAVA1990]

How about raising taxes and making the income tax a bit more progressive ? Seems we pay less than when I moved here 20 years ago. Sales and car taxes are lower and the income tax hasn't been touched in years. Also if you deduct, you can right the higher state taxes off your federal taxes so you don't even pay the full amount. I'd rather pay a little more and not see cuts to the schools.

[kevinm]

Originally Posted by Rhett_Butler

Glad I wasn't the only one to notice that... Oooo yeah. Thank GOODNESS we got those rest stops re-opened. Education? meh...

Where do you suggest they get off? Some exits are not safe and the gas stations are pretty seedy.

[RVA-Jsn20]

Originally Posted by Rhett_Butler

Funny that when cuts need to happen they always look to education to cut the widest and deepest amount from...

My wife brought up a good point this morning saying, "They should really start their cuts from the top and work their way down instead of starting at the bottom...."

Well HEAR HEAR!!! to that. Of course we will NEVER find anyone in their administrative palaces willing to make those kind of moves. What? Admit that we don't need 3 secreteries? Admitting that we don't need "Deputy" this and "Deputy" that? Admitting that the higher-ups simply hire more help to do the parts of their job they don't WANT to do (even though they DO have time to do it)??

Seen plenty of the waste first-hand. It's there. Even in education. Unfortunately they continue to surgically remove the muscle from the system and leave the fat... Pisses me off to no end.

Very well said!!

[Rhett_Butler]

Originally Posted by kevinm

Where do you suggest they get off? Some exits are not safe and the gas stations are pretty seedy.

Nothing seedy about rest stops..... No siree.... You ever stopped at one at 2 in the morning?

[guyincognito]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

How about raising taxes and making the income tax a bit more progressive ? Seems we pay less than when I moved here 20 years ago. Sales and car taxes are lower and the income tax hasn't been touched in years. Also if you deduct, you can right the higher state taxes off your federal taxes so you don't even pay the full amount. I'd rather pay a little more and not see cuts to the schools.

They should kill the car tax and replace it with an income tax hike... the car tax is expensive to administer and fairly easy to circumvent (given the number of plates from out of state I see around here). Then they need to raise the gas tax and index it to inflation.

[tgbwc]

Originally Posted by Alanboy395

One thing I don't think is fair is that the NoVA schools get cut some slack on the education cuts while the Hampton Roads schools get the shaft. NoVA is more economically blessed than HR. Let them suffer for once.

Cut some slack? Fairfax County routinely, year after year, has to cover 75% +/- of the budget for its schools.

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by tgbwc

Cut some slack? Fairfax County routinely, year after year, has to cover 75% +/- of the budget for its schools.

Fairfax County actually has the money to do it. Try telling the cities of Hampton and Portsmouth to cover 75% of their budget for schools. You'd bankrupt these cities in a snap of the fingers.

[tgbwc]

Originally Posted by Alanboy395

Fairfax County actually has the money to do it. Try telling the cities of Hampton and Portsmouth to cover 75% of their budget for schools. You'd bankrupt these cities in a snap of the fingers.

Actually, the school budget funding is short about $148 million. I'm not saying that HR should cover 75%, but a county such as Fairfax gets back about 19 cents per tax dollar that Richmond receives.

Counties like Fairfax and Prince William play by Richmond's rules year after year and now when recalculating the LCI would actually benefit NoVa, along comes a proposal recommending freezing a recalculation in the LCI. It has been regularly recalculated for the past what, 40 years and has always hurt the NoVa counties. I am glad the governor made the decision to unfreeze the calculation.

[tgbwc]

Regarding the above referenced funding formula, this is from a recent FCPS publication of The Bottom Line:



In terms of state funding, Virginia "equalizes" educational funding to its counties and cities through a formula called the local composite index (LCI). While this formula is somewhat complicated, the idea behind the LCI is to provide more state funding to school systems with the least local ability to pay.
How does Virginia measure a city or county’s ability to pay? Fifty percent of the measure is based on the value of real estate and public service corporations, another 10 percent of the formula is retail sales tax revenue, and 40 percent of the measure is based on adjusted gross income—with the total of these measures divided by average daily membership and population. Because Fairfax is a relatively wealthy county compared to many in Virginia, the school system has typically not fared well under this system. However, this year, because of the decline in Fairfax’s property values, applying the LCI would increase the percentage of state funding for FCPS, which would result in $61 million sent directly to the school system.
But the cheering shouldn’t begin yet. In his proposed budget, outgoing Governor Tim Kaine requested that—for the first time ever—the application of the LCI be frozen in order to "hold harmless" other counties whose percentage of state aid would decline this year if the LCI were applied.
Strongly opposing that decision, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and the Fairfax County School Board sent a joint letter on January 14 to Governor-Elect Robert McDonnell, asking him to reconsider that decision. The letter states in part:
“This is a basic issue of fairness—localities throughout the Commonwealth shared in the good times and the revenue generated from Northern Virginia during the economic boom. …Yet when economic hardships hit Northern Virginia, the pain is not borne equitably. …At a time when so much attention is focused on the need to turn the struggling economy around, one investment certain to reap benefits for the entire Commonwealth is Northern Virginia’s K-12 educational system, which brings major Fortune 500 companies to our area each year, benefiting us all.”

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/lee/pdf...lci_freeze.pdf