Monthly Archive for February, 2009

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Efficiency Study Makes C’ville Recommendations

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 18, 2009 in Government. 12 Comments

UVa’s Weldon Cooper Center has released the results of their efficiency study of the city government, Rachana Dixit writes in the Progress, and has recommended a series of ways that Charlottesville can save money without reducing the quality of government. One recommendation is to take another look at school funding, which has increased substantially per pupil in the past decade. Interestingly, the study found that Charlottesville’s staffing levels are pretty lean—save for the police and social services, which are at appropriate levels—which is the same conclusion drawn in the efficiency study of Albemarle, which was done by a totally different organization. It’s also recommended that some taxes and fees be increased slightly, including taking the personal property tax rate from 4.2% to 4.28%, which would match Albemarle’s rate.

You can read the study itself (2.5MB PDF) for the full details.

Furloughs at Area Businesses

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 18, 2009 in Business and Meta News. 8 Comments

GE Fanuc and The Daily Progress are both furloughing employees to save money. The Progress reports on their own furloughs, writing that employees will have to take ten days off without pay in the coming months, with the paper’s offices closing on those days, but “the paper will continue to be produced and delivered each morning without interruption.” It’s tough to see how the staff is supposed to put out a decent paper the following day but, then, Media General’s cost-savings efforts have generally involved doing things that will make their product worse. GE Fanuc is furloughing their employees for two weeks, Brian McNeill writes in the Daily Progress, leaving 300 employees—half of their workforce—on unemployment for a couple of weeks. They will, however, continue to receive benefits.

There’s word of layoffs at LexisNexis, though unconfirmed, with an anonymous commenter (anonymous to you, not me) explaining that it’s of “temps”, though some of those temps have been working there for many years in the manner of full-time employees, so presumably LexisNexis doesn’t have to call them “layoffs.” The company has been gradually laying people off for months, rather than canning a bunch of people at the same time. That’s got to make it a grim place to work.

Bell Votes to Cut Funding for the Drug Court

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 17, 2009 in Government, Law and Justice and Taxes. 37 Comments

In an effort to balance the state’s budget, Del. Rob Bell voted in favor of eliminating the funding for the Charlottesville/Albemarle Drug Court, Tasha Kates writes in the Daily Progress. Drug courts exist to help drug addicts kick the habit, rather than tossing them in prison, which is both ineffective and a lot more expensive. They’re a big money saver, which is why Sheriff Chip Harding (a Republican, like Del. Bell) is an ardent supporter of them. Since the budget amendment passed with 61% of the vote, this isn’t likely to change.

Cutting the funding for drug courts to save money reminds me of when Governor Mark Warner closed down the liquor stores one day a week to save money; since they’re profitable, that didn’t make much sense.

Construction Begins on Meadowcreek Parkway

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 17, 2009 in Development and Transportation. 25 Comments

I’m guessing some people just lost some bets: ground has been broken on the Meadowcreek Parkway, Rachana Dixit writes in the Progress. But it’s being done in an awfully strange way. The road is actually three roads, connecting in series, or so it is on paper. Albemarle County is building the 1.4 miles of the two mile road that runs through their municipality. That runs from Rio Road to a spot in the middle of McIntire Park. The next half mile is to be built by Charlottesville, though they don’t yet have the necessary permits to do that, and it’s not a sure thing that they’ll come through. And the last bit is the interchange—where it’ll connect to the bypass and to McIntire Road—which is VDOT’s project. It’s possible that we’ll end up with a 1.4 mile, $11.8M road to nowhere. The two-lane thruway is scheduled for completion in October 2011.

Surviving the Depression

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 16, 2009 in Business and General News. 4 Comments

Lisa Provence has a series of interviews with survivors of the Great Depression in this week’s Hook, and it actually makes for pretty good reading. Many have advice for how to get by, should this recession become something worse, and a lot of it seems to boil down to the ability to do for yourself. Things seem rough now, but reading the stories of what the 1930s were like, it’s clear that we’ve got it pretty good.

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