In 2008, when Eric Olsen ran for Fredericksburg Commonwealth’s Attorney he had the following to say about his residency, “I have lived in the city [of Fredericksburg] my whole life.”

In the voter’s guide that was just published by the Free Lance-Star, he now claims to have lived in Stafford County for “Eight years.”

So what is it Eric, were you lying in 2008 or lying in 2011? With the tangled web he has spun, with regards to his residency this year, it’s possible that he can’t even remember the truth.

I can see it now. In 2015, Olsen will be campaigning for Spotsylvania County Commonwealth’s Attorney and will claim that he was a resident (in utero this time) there too for several weeks. It’s clear that he will say anything to get elected.

This speaks directly to issues we have raised regarding serious questions about his integrity. Whether it’s infringing on a well-known trademark, accepting a campaign contribution from a foreign national, lying about his residency or not fully disclosing information on his financial disclosure forms, time and time again he fails to live up to the high standards one would expect for someone running to be the chief law enforcement officer in Stafford County.

At the end of the day, one’s integrity and trustworthiness are paramount in defining one’s ability to lead effectively. While the issues are also critically important, it’s those defining characteristics that are at the top people’s minds when evaluating candidates.

In the race for Stafford County Commonwealth’s Attorney, only one candidate possesses the integrity and trustworthiness to garner our respect and our votes for this critically important position. That candidate is Tim Barbrow!

Click here to view the embedded video.

On Sunday, Sen. Mark Warner appeared at a rally in support of Virginia State Senator Edd Houck’s (D-VA-17th) re-election campaign.

Sen. Warner noted how Sen. Houck has been critical in helping to maintain and protect Virginia’s AAA bond rating. He also talked about how if Washington doesn’t deal with its’ huge debt in a fair and balanced way that there would be cuts that disproportionally effect education, infrastructure, law enforcement and research. This trickle down effect will have a devastating effect on local communities.

Virginia, under Gov. Bob McDonnell, has already cut billions of dollars in education and health care the past couple of years. This is all while his biggest donors get hefty tax breaks while Virginians struggle.

Combine what’s happening on the federal level and on the state level and you have a recipe for disaster. Virginia’s AAA bond rating has been assigned a “negative outlook” by Moody’s. Sen. Edd Houck has consistently supported a balanced approach to our state budgets, which has helped to preserve Virginia’s AAA bond.

As Sen. Warner put it, “the last thing we want to do is turn Richmond into Washington.” He went on to say:

If we turn Richmond over to all one party and not the John Chichester types because their voices will not be heard in a legislature where compromise is not viewed as an essential trade of government, but compromise is somehow viewed the way it is now in Washington as a sign of weakness.

Sen. Houck’s Koch Brothers backed opponent doesn’t comprehend the words “balance” and “compromise.” The Republicans have lurched so far to the right that moderate’s in the party, who understand “balance” and “compromise,” have no home.

One such person is former State Senate Finance Chairman John Chichester (R-VA) who recently endorsed Sen. Houck. In his endorsement, he had the following to say:

Senator Houck worked closely with me and other Republicans to pass common sense legislation that helped to protect and create jobs, make create jobs, make critical investments in core services, and cut taxes.

Party labels are not as important as someone’s commitment to principle and willingness to work in a bipartisan fashion to find solutions. Edd will continue to be a leader on issues important to Virginias like improving our economy and keeping taxes low…I strongly encourage all of my fellow Republicans and other friends in the 17th District to send Edd Houck back to the State Senate.

Vote on November 8 to re-elect Virginia Sen. Edd Houck, our futures depend on it! The 17th District consists of all or parts of the counties of Albermarle, Culpeper, Louisa, Orange, and Spotsylvania and the City of Fredericksburg.

Here is the letter a teacher received in the mail from Speaker Bill Howell (R-28^th) yesterday:

There are so many things wrong with this letter; I don’t even know where to begin. Howell couldn’t be more dishonest and misleading – I’ve come to expect nothing less from him.

He justifies the House’s cuts to K-12 education by claiming that

prior to last year, state funding for public education was largely protected…

This is simply not true. Gov. McDonnell (R-VA), like Howell, has also tried to justify cuts to K-12 education by falsely asserting that these sorts of cuts have been largely “spared” in recent years. Again, not true. Cuts in Direct Aid have already led to a 15 percent reduction in K-12 funding in just the last 2 years.

How Howell can claim that the “net impact [of the House’s cuts] would result in [only] a decrease of $80 million (statewide) for K-12 education over the biennium,” is dubious, if not an outright distortion of the facts, at best?! The House has actually proposed $863.6 million in cuts to Direct Aid for FY’11-12, compared to the level of Direct Aid funding for FY’08-09. Consequentially, this will lead to 24, 225.3 K-12 jobs lost. Let us not forget that the cuts present in the FY’10 budget resulted in the elimination of state funding for 8,758 positions. That’s nearly 33,000 jobs lost; or a nearly 19 percent reduction in force for Virginia schools, based on the 2007-2008 Annual Superintendent’s Report that reported a total of 177,017 support and instructional positions statewide.

Howell actually goes on to say that

by lifting expensive state mandates, instituting structural reforms to VRS and giving local school divisions greater flexibility in state funding for education for Stafford County (an additional $3.5 million) and the City of Fredericksburg (an additional $597,000) as compared to the initial budget bill proposed in December by former Governor Kaine.

By state mandates, Howell is referring to the Standards of Quality (SOQ). The SOQ defines the basic standards of a minimum quality education in Virginia. These minimum standards define the minimum number of personnel (e.g. teachers to students, principals to students) required to meet the SOQ. Many of the more affluent school districts greatly exceed these minimum standards, while many of the poorer school districts simply meet these minimum standards. Virginia is ranked 37^th in the nation in per pupil spending, actually trailing the national average by $1,238. These “state mandates” are hardly expensive, comparatively speaking to what 36 other states are paying and the fact that we are well below the national average.

So Howell and his Republican allies in the House plan on lowering the minimum standards to save money and put our children at even a further disadvantage. This will inevitably mean larger class sizes.  If that isn’t bad enough, the House also plans on rolling back the rates, to FY 2008 levels, that the state will pay out to the localities in order to meet their share of these minimum staffing standards.

As I discussed in an earlier post, the Local Composite Index (LCI) determines the state and local shares of funding a minimum education in Virginia. Anything above these minimums are paid for entirely by the localities. I also mentioned that Gov. McDonnell planned on cutting the SOQ staffing requirements (leading to larger class sizes) to reduce the required amount of funds provided to the localities by the state to meet these new lower minimum requirements.

The additional state funds that Howell quotes for Stafford and Fredericksburg are as a result of re-benchmarking the LCI, which is done on an annual basis to reflect the local economic climate. Howell seems to imply that this is in some way related to “lifting expensive mandates [and] instituting structural reforms to VRS.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, because of the watering down of the minimum educational standards contained with the SOQ, Stafford and Fredericksburg will be receiving less money – not more (see Table 1). This actually exacerbates the funding cliff that exists for Stafford and Fredericksburg in FY’12.

While utter panic and fear set in, fear not, Howell and the Republicans have a plan (Snark). It’s not bad enough that they have proposed to lower the minimum educational standards in Virginia, resulting in a decrease in funding, but they plan to make up this difference on the backs of our teachers and support staff. You heard me right. The same folks who have gone without raises and who have seen health care premiums rise significantly over the last several years. Thanks to Howell, local school boards will now have the option of requiring employees to pay up to 5 percent of the cost of the Virginia Retirement System. This is how Howell defines “giving local school divisions greater flexibility.” Well thanks, Bill! This equates to another reduction in teacher and support staff pay.

So the VRS “flexibility” simply shifts a portion of what the localities were paying onto the backs of teachers and support staff. In addition to shifting a portion of VRS contributions onto these employees, Gov. McDonnell and Howell are also planning on steep cuts in contributions, overall, to the VRS. The effect of this will be nothing short of devastating and will most likely result in significant future budget woes – possibly having to be covered through increased taxes. As the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted,

The problem is the widening gap between what retirement experts say is necessary to fully fund the pension plans and what the state is willing to pay. Virginia’s pension plans were funded at 84 percent of their future liabilities for state employees last summer and 76 percent for teachers; by 2013, VRS projects the plans would fall below 62 percent of their obligations for state employees and 59 percent for teachers at current contribution rates.

Gov. McDonnell and Howell also plan on additional “reforms” of VRS for new employees. As the Virginia Education Association explains,

Future hires will have a reduced retirement benefit.

The House lowers the multiplier for future hires from the current 1.7% to 1.65%. The Senate does not change the multiplier.

The House uses the “Rule of 90” for future hires. Your age and service would need to add up to 90 for you to qualify for full retirement. The full retirement age in the Senate bill for future hires is age 60 with 30 years of experience.

The Senate conforms the full retirement age for new hires having less than 30 years of experience to the Social Security retirement age.
For new hires, both chambers change the formula for determining the Average Final Salary (AFS) to the average of the highest 5 years. This is a change from the average of the highest three years.

Finally, the House and the Senate both change the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). The COLA is intended to protect your retirement income from inflation. Currently, the COLA is capped at 5%. You get a 1% increase for each of the first three percentage points of inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and 0.5% for each additional point up to seven percentage points of inflation. The current cap is 5%. Under the new proposal you get a 1% increase for the first two percentage points of inflation, followed by 0.5% for the next eight points up to ten percentage points of inflation. The new cap is 6%.

The state saves money on the new COLA if inflation is low, but loses money if inflation is high.

The problem with all of this is that it will take a very long time to realize any savings, let alone in FY’11 or FY’12.  The math simply does not add up.

If you can’t take anymore, I would stop reading at this point. The Washington Post also describes how the House budget plans on lumping

together funding for the Virginia Preschool Initiative, early reading and other targeted programs for at-risk students. Instead of distributing the money based on the number of students who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch programs (proven barometers for identifying at-risk students), block grants then would go to localities according to student enrollment as defined by average daily membership.

The effect would be to take money intended to help students who are at risk of educational failure and redirect it to districts that are larger and wealthier.

These “block grants” would now be awarded based on student enrollment and not on need. This is what Howell calls “flexibility.” Oh yeah, according to Del. Kay Kory (D-38^th), the “block grants” will also be slashed by $500 million.

All of what I’ve just talked about represents catastrophic cuts to public preK-12 education. What’s sad is that Howell tries to dupe constituents with misleading data and false conclusions. He is the worst of the worst type of politicians. So while Gov. McDonnell and Howell provide significant tax credits to businesses and funds them with these catastrophic cuts, our children are being victimized. Hey I guess since our schools are being gutted, the only way to attract businesses is to provide huge incentives to come here. Our school system certainly wouldn’t be what attracts them.

Gov. McDonnell and Howell clearly don’t understand the economic benefit of a strong education system: gutting preK-12 education, creating a huge VRS liability and laying off 30,000 workers is clearly a better economic plan. Anyone want to call for a re-vote?