Tag Archives: Budget

Lighting the fire

Posted on March 22, 2016 at 6:01 am by John Flannery |

John P. Flannery appeared before the BOS on St. Patty’s Day to argue for full funding

There was an Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, who wrote that education is “not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire.”

What should we spend as a government to spur a child to learn, and perhaps to “catch fire?”

Last year, we had a public discussion about full funding for our schools, and yet, here we are again, after an election, seemingly surprised that it’s going to cost us more again to get it right, and we are debating, once more, “Should we fully fund our schools?”’

Of course, we should. Spend the 2 cents!

We are prepared to fully fund everything else in the budget, at $1.15, but we’re hesitating about spending the funds on education, at $1.17, begrudging the 2 cents.

Our County invited families from far and wide to come to live with us in Loudoun County, and promised services if they did so.

Are we now going to say, forget it? Continue reading →

Board gets a failing grade on schools

Posted on April 24, 2014 at 6:22 am by John Flannery |

One Student’s Plea for saving Lincoln Elementary School!

Our Loudoun County Board of Supervisors is poised to close four community schools to save what they spent on the Redskins – two million dollars.

The Board calls this “budgeting.”

I call it government mismanagement, preferring games over grades, and fail the Board for its gross mishandling of a core governmental function, how we rightly educate our children.

In 2012, our football sycophantic Board of Supervisors promised to pay Danny “Redskin” Snyder two million dollars to sell Loudoun as the home of the Redskins; in the bargain, the County got game tix, and a classy suite like political big shots crave to watch pro ball games.

(Not to be too much of a buzz kill, but don’t the Redskins now rehearse their winning team form in Richmond, and not Ashburn?)

Now we want to close these four elementary community schools in Aldie, Hamilton, Hillsboro and Lincoln, the oldest of these founded in 1840 and the newest in 1922, because these closures will save the County two million dollars of a school budget shortfall of thirty eight million dollars, because the proposed budget was irresponsibly shrunken by the Board, making these misguided cuts by our School Board “necessary.”

Outgoing School Superintendent Hatrick, to his credit, fired away, rightly charging in the most forceful language that this Board has created an “artificial crisis,” as 2,000 more students enter our countywide school system, and “willfully chosen not to listen to the public, not to listen to the School Board about the funding that is needed for next year for this school system.” Continue reading →

Whitbeck led reform commission to “save BILLIONS,” boasts Delgaudio

Posted on December 13, 2013 at 8:41 am by Pariahdog |

Eugene Delgaudio’s lie-filled 12-11-13 email promoting John Whitbeck

John Whitbeck co-chaired the Loudoun County Government Reform Commission subcommittee responsible for studying fees for county services, privatization and outsourcing. His subcommittee targeted the vulnerable county workforce and the after school program that serves the county’s poorest children. Whitbeck’s subcommittee report was delivered four months late. It made no outsourcing recommendations, and its major “saving” recommendation was to double the fees on the already profitable CASA after school program.

In one of the most lie-filled emails of all time, Eugene Delgaudio’s 2013-12-11 campaign email boasted:

The largest and most comprehensive budget cutting program and money saving ideas ever presented to Loudoun since my own “Delgaudio’s 100 Million Dollar Tax Reducation [sic] Plan” was produced by Loudoun County Government Reform Commission.

The scale of the Reform ideas is gigantic and could save BILLIONS over the next decade if implemented.

Continue reading →

An easy Reform Commission cut

Posted on February 15, 2012 at 10:15 am by Epluribusunum |

Dear Loudoun County Government Reform Commission,

I have a way for you to immediately save Loudoun County taxpayers one quarter of a million dollars per year.

That is the amount of revenue the county is not receiving due to the property tax exemption granted in late 2003 to the massive Loudoun compound of Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministries/Colson Center.

Our tax dollars at work.

Rescind it. PFM doesn’t qualify for a tax exemption. Tax exempt entities in Loudoun are not permitted to engage in partisan political advocacy and propaganda, and that is precisely what Chuck Colson uses his organization to do. Case in point – as discussed here, Chuck Colson has fabricated and repeatedly disseminated the following two big, honking falsehoods: that President Obama has redefined “freedom of religion” to be a more narrow concept of “freedom of worship,” and that the Affordable Care Act mandate to employers to provide contraceptive coverage as part of comprehensive health insurance plans is something new, and is “the most important issue — I really think the most important I’ve faced in my ministry, and the greatest threat to America, the greatest threat to us as Christians.” But in fact: Continue reading →

They’ve Earned A Raise

Posted on March 18, 2011 at 7:24 pm by Paradox13 |

Leesburg Today reports that the County budget includes a 3% raise for County employees. “For now,” as they put it.

By taking no action to change the proposed FY12 budget, the Board of Supervisors last night left the proposed the cost of living and salary increases in place–but it is not clear whether every employee will see the full 3 percent increase in their pay checks. Some supervisors want to examine a graduated scale of increase based on an employee’s salary.

“I would argue that someone making $100,000 does not need as much of a raise as someone making money on the lower end of the scale,” Supervisor Andrea McGimsey (D-Potomac) said.

While supervisors were told salary increases could be based on employee classifications, the board decided to hold off on that discussion until after supervisors decided school system funding. – Leesburg Today

I would like to be counted among those who believe that County staff have earned their first cost of living adjustment in three years. In this, I fully agree with Supervisor Burton, who said, “Health care contributions have gone up. VRS costs went up. They’ve been doing an outstanding job as an overall staff with diminishing, diminishing rewards. And the cost of living is becoming quite a problem.”

Sometimes, when the subject of cost of living adjustments for public employees comes up, there are people who oppose them. The argument seems to be, “if I’m not getting a raise, they shouldn’t get a raise.” That argument is uncharitable on its face, but it begs the question: Why aren’t people in the private sector getting raises?
Continue reading →