Am going to suspect there can not be much to "define" the benefits for an employee in the event of a furlough as Mr. Justice is advocating in his bill to the Legislature. If those benefits are tampered with, it could cause a lot of financial heartache to anyone who gets sick or has a need for surgery during that period. Insurance companies do not like breaks in coverage as far as premium payments go, no matter the pay status of the individual.
The down rating on the State is going to cost us a lot more money before it gets better. I know many of you loved Mr. Tomblin. But he was a Tax and Spend guy and you are all going to pay for it even if you were getting all the free stuff that no one pays for here.
Where it is going to end is of course years down the road and no guarantee that any talked about Sunset Clause will ever be honored to reduce/ eliminate the new Tax increases coming.
As the late great Tallulah Bankhead said to the guys in the storm, "Hang on boys, it is going to be a rough ride".
Mr. Justice is out as you know touting his highway plans to fix the roads and hire 48K new people in some capacity or another? And their tax payments to the State will in his verbiage go from one hand to pay off the State Deficit. Really, why is smelling like Mr. Obama's pie in the sky? Another $20. bucks for license plate renewals and only $.10/ gallon on gas. The $1.00 on the turnpikes is almost a nonevent. What would the State save if it did NOT give the Teacher's that 2% pay raise for two years? Betcha we are talking some real money there too?
The new bill on littering fines is going to get somewhere between little and damn little. The simple process of enforcing it will shy most away from it. Would suspect it will be a nightmare to catch folks on the Streets, Roads and Highways chucking any and all from their vehicles? The part on the folks turning their property into junk yards was stripped out so that is not going to work well. We have folks now in Vienna that had some real problems with cleaning up their yards. Now, all bets will be off and they can go back to collecting.
One would have to admit that the new plan for a huge Tax Credit on rehabilitating old buildings would be interesting. But the projected Taxes from using those buildings for whatever purpose would have what kind of payback time? Five years; ten years or who the Hell knows? We need to utilize some of our older buildings for sure, but also need to have a very, very firm grip on when all these Credits finally get back to the Taxpayers who are in reality making the "Loans" to the developers. These buildings are apparently supposed to be "certified historic building(s)" and have a "qualified rehabilitation building" designation by several State and National Agencies? Now just what the Hell does that mean in simple English? Sounds like an Attorneys' Dream?
Can this be in simpler terms like the Park on the River that Mr. Rapp is busily developing even if he seems to not have the appropriate permissions from the DEP? He is just going merrily along as he seems knows He is above any Law or Ordnance? More on this later.
And yet again, the BOE Bond issue goes forward as the Board passes it at the last meeting. The Daily Blat continues to push it for the Board and seems to forget that until the site for the new school is finally approved that possibly, just possibly this bond is in question?
What really surprised me is that reading the list of Schools to get new roofs are Neale, Greenmont and Vienna Elementary Schools. Now what is so interesting is that "supposedly" Neale and Greenmont were on the block to be closed and the kids to a new Vienna School? I read this and could only ask but what these were the goodies to get the voters in at least Vienna to buy into the new Bond? Don't close any schools, put new roofs on them and leave the kids where they are. I am a bit skeptical of all three of these schools needing new roofs at the same time? Is it possible that the BOE is so remiss that roofs were allowed to go far, far past any normal life usage? Repair after repair for years no matter the effectiveness of repairs?
I don't buy into that and would be curious on when the original roofs went on; how many times has it been replaced since that date? How many times repaired since that date? Do the repairs and or replacements really get us to 2017 in rational usage? Or as I asked above; just buying votes to get the Bond passed? Could apply to many or at least some of the other schools on the list as well. Cannot believe the BOE allowed such massive infrastructure failures to happen? As I have spent a few years in the Building Trades, it is common knowledge the next best thing to an enclosed building is one with a roof for working on the rest of it. 'nuff said'.