Archive for February, 2006
David recently joined fellow Alexandrians at Gadsby’s Tavern in Old Town to celebrate George Washington’s birthday at the 219th Annual Birthnight Ball. Dressed as a 19th Century barkeep, David spent the evening tending to the libations of the guests, giving new meaning to “public service.”
There were no laws against child labor in George Washington’s day, so Caleb joined David as his apprentice. The Englin men were also joined by David’s fellow Burgess, David Bulova, hailing from the City of Fairfax. Huzzah!
Richmond — Del. David Englin (D-Alexandria) made a bold attempt to secure funds to increase foster care payments for 8,000 of Virginia’s most vulnerable children by offering a rare floor amendment to the state’s biennial budget during debate in the House of Delegates yesterday.
“I knew it was a long shot, but this is an important issue,” said Englin. “Unfortunately, the Appropriations Committee didn’t include my amendment to increase foster care payments in the budget it sent to the full House for approval. I could have just let it be, but I saw a chance for another try and I decided to take it.”
Here is the text of Englin’s floor speech arguing for the amendment:
Mr. Speaker, this amendment will increase the payments we make to foster parents who provide loving, nurturing homes to the roughly 8,000 children in Virginia who are in foster care. We face a crisis in recruiting and retaining foster parents for these vulnerable children because we pay so little to care for these children that adults who are otherwise willing to open their homes and perform this labor of love simply cannot afford to do so. The federal government estimates that it costs $908 per month to care for a child. And what do we pay? We pay between $312 and $463 per month, depending on the child’s age. By way of comparison, Maryland pays up to $550 per month, Tennessee pays up to $580 per month, and West Virginia pays $600 per month. Let me repeat, this great Commonwealth pays as little as $312 per month, where West Virginia pays $600 per month, regardless of the age of the child.
Mr. Speaker, this is a very reasonable amendment that would increase our payments to between $323 and $497 per month, depending on the child’s age. As you can see, even with this amendment we would still lag behind Maryland, Tennessee, and West Virginia, but it would provide some measure of help to the most vulnerable children in our communities.
The fiscal impact of this amendment is just over $3 million per year – money that could easily come from the $14.3 million of unappropriated funds in the budget that is before us.
Mr. Speaker, I’ll close by noting how easy it is for us – as we wade our way through dry lists of programs and figures and as we engage in the partisan rough and tumble of producing a budget – how easy it is for us to forget that this budget we have before us is a moral document. Through this budget, we collectively decide whom we lift up and whom we leave out. If we can afford to forgo each year more than $100 million in estate taxes that benefit just 1,000 of the wealthiest Virginians, surely we can afford $3 million each year to benefit 8,000 of our most vulnerable children. Ladies and gentlemen, when you vote on this amendment, I hope you will consider not just the fiscal implications of your vote – which, quite frankly, are relatively modest – but I urge you also to consider the moral implications of your vote either to lift up or to leave out these 8,000 vulnerable children and families who care for them.
“Given the partisan makeup of the House of Delegates and the majority’s view of issues like foster care, I knew I wasn’t likely to have the votes to pass the amendment,” said David. “Despite not winning the vote on the amendment, I will continue raising the issue and fighting to improve the lives of these vulnerable children.”
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Today David released the results of his January 2006 Constituent Survey. Click here to view the results.
“Thank you to everyone who took the opportunity to share your views with me through this survey,” said David. “I will continue to issue periodic surveys throughout the year to help me represent you better.”
Next week, David will issue an updated survey focused on transportation and budget issues. Sign up for David’s email newsletter to be notified when the survey is ready.
Things are starting to heat up in Richmond now that the House Republicans have released their proposed budget, which slashes millions of dollars from education, health care, public safety and other core services while still failing to meet Virginia’s long-term transportation needs.
The urgent need to fix our failing transportation system is driving this year’s budget process. We need to reduce congestion and improve public transit so we can spend less time stuck in traffic or on the Metro, have more time with our families, and keep our economy strong well into the future. Unfortunately, effective transportation systems cost money – a lot of money. According to the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, Northern Virginia alone needs an additional $664 million per year for the next 25 years to improve our road and rail systems in ways that will actually reduce congestion and commute times.
To meet that need without raiding money for education and other priorities, we need long-term dedicated funding streams for transportation. Unfortunately, the House Republican budget plan falls short. It provides for a relatively paltry amount of money for transportation – just $630 million for each of two years – and fails to include long-term dedicated funding sources. Moreover, it uses debt issued from money that would otherwise go toward education and social services to pay for a few transportation projects that amount to political pork for a handful of delegates.
Both Governor Kaine and the Senate have offered responsible budget plans that dedicate nearly $1 billion each year to transportation without raiding the general fund or saddling our children with debt. We are just now beginning the process of three-dimensional chess that is negotiating and reconciling the competing budget proposals. I will continue to fight for a budget that includes sufficient long-term dedicated funding for transportation without raiding the general fund or asking our children to pay our bills.
Speaking of the budget, I wanted to share my dismay at some of the fiscal choices we have made so far this session. I believe that budgets are moral documents through which we decide whom to lift up and whom to leave out. This year, the House of Delegates chose to completely eliminate the estate tax in Virginia, which means we will lose $120 million in annual revenue in order to benefit about 1,000 of the wealthiest Virginians. Contrast that with our failure to adopt the budget amendment I offered to increase foster care payments for the roughly 8,000 foster children in Virginia, which would have cost about $3 million per year. I’m proud to say that I voted against House Bill 40, which repealed the estate tax, and I look forward to the day when a majority of legislators would prefer to put $3 million toward helping 8,000 foster children rather than $120 million toward helping 1,000 wealthy Virginians.
As the budget process continues, I hope you will contact me at 804-698-1045 or DelDEnglin@house.state.va.us to share your views.
Valentine’s Day marks the end of the first half of this year’s legislative session and the deadline by which each bill introduced at the beginning of the session must have passed either the House or the Senate before it can “crossover” to the other chamber for consideration. Therefore, I thought it would be appropriate to update you on the status of some of the many bills I have been working on:
The Clean Smokestacks Act, House Bill 1055, which I cosponsored with Del. Jack Reid (R-72), Del. Al Eisenberg (D-47), and several others passed the House by a vote of 100 to 0. While the final bill is not as aggressive as some of us might have hoped, it will move us forward in reducing emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and mercury from Virginia’s coal-fired power plants.
HB 680, which I cosponsored with freshman Del. Rob Wittman (R-99), will create a grant program designed to spur increased production of biofuels in Virginia. The Appropriations Committee approved this bill by a vote of 23 to 0, and I expect it to easily pass the full House this week.
HB 391 to allow T.C. Williams High School to open before Labor Day in 2006 was combined with Del. Adam Ebbin’s identical bill, and our combined bill passed the House by a vote of 99 to 0. This one-time exemption from Virginia’s law requiring school to start after Labor Day will make it possible for Alexandria City Public Schools to complete construction of the new T.C. Williams High School building during the summer of 2007.
I cosponsored two bills with Del. Steve Landes (R-25) to begin withdrawing Virginia from No Child Left Behind, which increases local education costs (and therefore drives up our property taxes) without improving our schools. HB 1427 and HB 1428 puts us on the path to withdrawing from No Child Left Behind while also addressing concerns about federal Title I funding and education accountability. Both of these bills passed the House by a vote of 99 to 0.
HB 1002 to give the Arlington County Board the same power over its salaries as every other county board in Virginia passed the House by a vote of 87 to 8. Because this bill only applies to one jurisdiction, it was considered “special legislation” that required a two-thirds majority in the House to pass, making this victory that much sweeter. The citizens of Arlington should determine what they pay their board members, not delegates and senators from the far reaches of the Commonwealth.
The bill I cosponsored to create small employer health insurance cooperatives passed the House by a vote of 99 to 0. HB 761 will help lower the cost of health care by allowing small employers to band together to purchase health insurance at better rates.
HB 390 would exempt all energy efficient products granted a federal Energy Star label from sales tax. I worked with one of the Finance Subcommittees to scale back the fiscal impact of the bill and combine it with another similar bill. The resulting bill would create an Energy Star sales tax holiday to coincide with the August back-to-school sales tax holiday also being considered. The Finance Committee referred the resulting bill to the Appropriations Committee for consideration in the upcoming budget.
At the recommendation of the chairman of the Studies Subcommittee, the Department of Social Services has agreed to conduct the study on hunger in Virginia that I requested through House Joint Resolution 132.
At my request, the House carried over three bills, which means we will take them up again next year:
HB 974 would exempt certain fuel-efficient cars and trucks from sales tax, based on the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s combined fuel efficiency rating. The underlying concept of the bill — creating more incentives for people to purchase fuel efficient vehicles — is a good one. However, the EPA recently announced a plan to revise how it determines fuel efficiency, and it is just not good public policy to peg a tax exemption to a standard that is about to change. Therefore, the House will address this bill next year once the EPA settles on a rating system.
HB 389 would repeal the existing ban on civil unions, domestic partnership contracts, and similar private legal arrangements between same-sex couples. This bill is absolutely the right thing to do, and I knew when I introduced it that it would be dead on arrival, given the pending constitutional amendment on the same issue. However, by carrying the bill over to next year, I will give the House an opportunity to redeem itself after a majority of Virginians vote this November against including this ban in the Bill of Rights of the Virginia Constitution.
The Housing Subcommittee carried over HB 393 and referred it to the Virginia Housing Commission for further study, with the intent to take up the bill next year. During condominium conversions, this bill would allow certain elderly and disabled renters to assign their existing right to purchase their units to public housing agencies or nonprofit housing corporations. This win-win policy would allow developers to sell the units at market rate without displacing the elderly and disabled renters and still keeping the units affordable. Having the Virginia Housing Commission study the policy will give various stakeholders around the Commonwealth an opportunity to understand and get comfortable with this innovative idea, making it that much more likely to pass during next year’s General Assembly session.
