Democratic Caucus chair Brian Moran expresses concern about how the abuser fees will hurt education funding. From February 13, 2006 (h/t 750 Volts)
8 thoughts on “Moran on abuser fees”
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Democratic Caucus chair Brian Moran expresses concern about how the abuser fees will hurt education funding. From February 13, 2006 (h/t 750 Volts)
Comments are closed.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Sorry, but the argument simply does not hold water. Was there no school construction before the Literary Fund was established? Of course there was. The money came from other sources. If the Literary Fund were underfunded or disestablished, the General Assembly would again get money from other sources for school construction. Money is fungible, and these earmarked accounts are a convenient fiction, just like the Social Security Trust Fund.
So the Democrats are simultaneously arguing that the fees both will and will not be imposed?
No, Moran is arguing that the FINES (which go to the Literary Fund) will not be imposed because the FEES (over which the judges have no discretion) are too high.
Ah..got it
AEM – it’s about the earmarks of the funds. The fines are earmarked to go to the Literary Fund.
Last time I looked, the state was paying a lot less than its fair share for schools. The last thing we need is to have the resources for schools reduced.
One wonders how much worse – or better – Virginia’s gov’t would be but for its rather restrictive constitution (e.g., the Dillon rule, all fines go to the Literary Fund, etc.).
It all depends on your definition of “fair.” In Hampton, for instance, the state will pay 55% of the FY’08 school budget.
If we drill down here, we see that the state pays more than 45% for all Tidewater cities. (Go to “Spending, Revenue, and Taxes” then “Revenue Distributions” for each city.)
Statewide, the state paid 40.3% of all K-12 public school costs in 2004.
It seems that Tidewater is getting funded by NoVa.
MB – VA constitution is a strange beast. It’s got all kinds of stuff in there one would never expect.
AEM – the funding formula, by nearly everyone’s definition, is screwed up. The state share is underfunded due to their use of minimum requirements, which almost none of the localities use.