City Campaign Finance Numbers Are In

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 18, 2011 in Politics. 24 Comments

Campaign finance reports have been filed by city candidates, Graham Moomaw writes in the Progress, and those numbers give an early indication of the sort of support that candidates are enjoying.

In the council race, UVA employee Brevy Cannon takes the lead with $4,100 in contributions, but that includes a $2,000 loan he made to his campaign. So really it’s former school board member Dede Smith up front, with $3,900 in contributions. Incumbent Satyendra Huja has taken in $3,500, school board member Kathy Galvin raised $3,200, and developer Paul Beyer raised $2,600 (though spent basically all of it). The other candidates are pretty far behind: Scott Bandy took in $120, Brandon Collins raised $750, James Halfaday $850, Andrew Williams $300, and Bob Fenwick didn’t report any donations. Colette Blount joined the race recently enough that she didn’t have to file.

There’s a clear leader in fundraising for the clerk’s race: school board member Llezelle Dugger, with a striking $8,600. Second place is held by incumbent Paul Garrett, with $2,200. Pam Melampy is a distant third, with $900.

Survey Shows Opposition to Shortened County Summer Break

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 18, 2011 in Education. 5 Comments

Albemarle parents are overwhelmingly against shortening schools’ summer vacation, Aaron Richardson writes in the Daily Progress. The school system sent out a survey to parents, allowing them to pick between starting school on August 8, August 13, or August 22. Of the nearly 2,000 respondents, 1,200 chose August 22. There was no option for later dates. Some parents believe that the county is trying to herd public opinion towards an earlier start, for the purpose of holding the Standards of Learning test before winter break, rather than after, in order to increase scores. And for good cause—they say as much:

Director of Secondary Education Matt Haas said the calendar changes would help make the semesters an even length. By starting earlier, he said, high school students will finish their exams before winter break, and have more time to study for standardized tests in the spring.

“Starting earlier gives teachers more time to get kids ready for the SOLs and AP exams, and have school end after the testing period,” Haas said.

Despite the strong survey results, one can already see some push-back from the school board, discrediting the metrics of their own survey:

Harley Miles, vice chairman and at-large member of the county’s School Board, said the comments on the survey were so varied that the numbers were less important than the concerns parents expressed.

“It’s interesting to me that there’s some parents who say let’s start as early as possible, some say let’s start later, some say let’s start in the middle,” Miles said. “There’s a variety of responses, so you can’t just go on the numbers.”

Kluge’s Finances Public in Bankruptcy Filings

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 16, 2011 in Business. 3 Comments

Patricia Kluge and William Moses’ finances are a matter of public record, Bryan McKenzie writes, and it’s not pretty. Bankruptcy filings have $2.65M in assets, and they’re $47.5M in debt. Those assets are $1.35M in real estate and $1.3M in cash, which is to say that they apparently have no cash, stock, bonds, or any liquid assets to speak of. Somehow they have an estimated monthly income of $16k (where does it come from—do they have jobs?) against monthly expenses of $21k, including $5.5k in rent.

If I’d just declared bankruptcy, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t move into a 6,600 square foot home, as these two financial wizards just did. The word for that is “mansion.” This is the part where I’d make a crack about how the rich are different than you and me, but they’re also different from the Kluges—because, at this point, I’m worth more than they are.

BoS Speakers Oppose Bypass Overwhelmingly

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 14, 2011 in Government and Transportation. 8 Comments

In response to the Board of Supervisors’ unannounced midnight vote to approve the long-dormant Western Bypass last month, a packed house objected to the new road at last night’s meeting, Aaron Richardson writes in the Progress. Over 100 people signed up to speak, overwhelmingly in opposition to either the road or the process by which it was approved. But it’s not clear that there’s any purpose to such objections—the BoS has already cast their votes.

Audit of Clerk’s Offices is a Bad Scene

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 9, 2011 in Law and Justice and Politics. 30 Comments

The Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts’ audits of the Charlottesville and Albemarle Circuit Courts Clerk’s Offices have found serious mistakes by both, Tasha Kates reports in the Daily Progress.

The audit of Debra Shipp’s office, in Albemarle (PDF) concludes that she “does not perform the required financial duties associated with her office,” specifically finding that she failed to pass along to the state $201k in fines and court costs, and is holding $255k that should be passed along to the state’s unclaimed property registry, among other significant failings. Out of a corpus of 48 cases that were analyzed for the audit, 25 (52%) had mistakes. Perhaps most alarming is this finding:

The Clerk again did not reconcile the operations bank account and resolve reconciling items for the entire audit period. In combination with two prior audits, the Clerk has not in effect reconciled the bank account since April 2008, a total of 32 months. It is critical the Clerk reconciles this account and makes necessary corrections to the accounting system monthly to ensure the bank statement, checkbook and accounting system agree.

Things aren’t quite as bad in Paul Garrett’s office, in the city, but that’s not saying much. The audit of his office (PDF) found that Garrett “does not properly enter fines and costs in the court’s automated accounting system,” as is required by state law. Of the corpus of 21 cases that were analyzed for the audit, 11 (52%) had mistakes.

Each report contains a letter of response from each clerk, explaining the cause of these problems and what their proposed solutions are. (Shipp notes in her letter, not incidentally, that her 21-year-old son died in a car accident in January, which has presumably caused the sorts of life-altering disruptions that one would expect.)

Wondering whether these sorts of problems are standard, or if this is unusual, I checked out the reports for Greene, Nelson, Fluvanna, Orange, Buckingham, and Augusta. All of them were flawless or quite nearly so.

The position of Clerk of Court is elected, for reasons that I’ve never quite understood. Shipp, a Democrat, was elected to an eight-year term in 2008. Garrett, also a Democrat, is running for reelection this year, and is being challenged for the nomination by two other Democrats, Pat Melampy and Llezelle Dugger.

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