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Legislative Program 2006Legislative Position of the TJPDC for the City of Charlottesville and the Counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson Action Items:
Areas of Continuing Concern:
The Planning District’s member localities urge the state to establish stable and consistent state revenues for Virginia’s transportation infrastructure without heavy reliance on the general fund or debt. The state should address funding shortfalls in transportation construction while continuing to provide secondary road and street maintenance funding on top of construction dollars. Transportation will be a primary focus of the 2006 legislative session. Despite continued documentation of the need to fund a declining transportation infrastructure, no reliable and long-term transportation funding solutions have been approved. Absent a major infusion of a sustained investment in transportation, Virginia faces a congestion and mobility crisis that will stifle economic growth and negatively affect the quality of life of our residents. The state should direct its funding efforts at all transportation modes. Specifically, it should account for urban area needs where public transportation is very important, the traffic demands placed on fast-growing localities and the ongoing improvements necessary on rural, secondary roads. These improvements are vital to our region’s ability to respond to local and regional congestion and economic development issues. We support the ongoing state and local efforts to coordinate transportation and land use planning, and state incentives for localities that implement such planning practices. Unfortunately, since the early 1990’s, the General Assembly has enacted legislation that erodes local land use authority, while local government requests for adequate public facilities ordinances and impact fees for transportation improvements and school buildings have been handily defeated. VDOT should be mindful of local comprehensive, land use and trail/bicycle plans, as well as regional transportation plans, when planning transportation systems within a locality. We request that the state recognize that creation of any local transportation district serve as a mechanism to enhance accompanying public and private dollars for projects in accordance with local priorities, rather than to replace that funding. We also request that the state provide funding for improvements along rural sections of the Rt. 29 corridor, such as acceleration/deceleration lanes, crossovers and pedestrian walkways. In addition, the state should allow the use of Rural Rustic Road funds to pave rural addition roads. We support funding for the TransDominion Express with stops at Oak Ridge and Charlottesville. We endorse the use of modern roundabouts in lieu of conventional intersection design and allowance of signal replacement funding for construction of roundabouts.
The Planning District’s member localities urge the governor and legislature to preserve the adequacy of local revenues so that local government leaders can take appropriate measures to raise sufficient revenues to sustain and improve services to the public. We believe that changes to Virginia’s tax code should not reduce local government revenues or restrict local taxing authority. The legislature should broaden the revenue sources available to local governments, rather than capping, removing or restricting those sources, taxing authority or user fees. It also should equalize the revenue-raising authority of counties with that of cities and consider sharing a portion of state income tax revenues with localities. Real Property: Candidates for statewide office made various proposals for residential property tax relief, by restricting assessment authority or tax rates, exempting portions of value increases, or other property tax limitations. These approaches of limiting residential tax increases could force local governments to reduce services or impose other tax or fee increases. Personal Property: The General Assembly must meet its obligation to localities and fully fund car tax relief. Funding to cover the six months’ shortfall in FY06 must be appropriated in the budget and the state should promptly reimburse localities. State car tax relief policy should not cause local cash flow problems or cause localities to lose investment income because of a delay in reimbursement. Telecommunications: Any changes to the telecommunications tax structure should preserve local government revenues, on a locality-by-locality basis and including those for E911 services, and guarantee that localities receive growing tax revenues from emerging and advancing industries and services. The state should not divert any such new revenue to address future budget shortfalls. Mandates: We oppose unfunded state and federal mandates and the cost shifting that occurs when the state fails to fund mandates or reduces or eliminates funding for state-supported programs. This cost shifting reduces the ability, especially in our rural localities, to meet local needs and forces our citizens to bear local tax and fee increases (which our localities have implemented) to pay for such programs and services. State funding reductions for state-required services/programs should be accompanied by relaxation of the state requirement. Finally, we believe the state should consider paying all costs for fully funding certain state programs carried out at the local level, such as constitutional officers. We also request that the state undertake long term planning in establishing VRS rates so that localities are not burdened with significant year-to-year rate changes.
The Planning District’s member localities believe the state should fund its share of the realistic costs of meeting the Standards of Quality (SOQ) and enhance teacher salaries to help recruit and retain high-quality instructional personnel. It is essential that the state fully meet its responsibilities to fund its share of public education costs. In 2004, the state acknowledged that localities have greatly exceeded their mandated responsibilities for education funding, by providing dollars for initiatives already being paid for by local governments, such as resource and technology personnel and planning time for teachers. State funds required during the next biennium associated with increased costs for the SOQ are expected to reach nearly $1 billion. Though the recent state investments in public education were appreciated, we continue to believe that additional state revenues are necessary for the Commonwealth to meet its responsibility for funding education, specifically as enumerated by the 2001 JLARC recommendations and the 2003 Board of Education (BOE) initiatives. The BOE’s unaddressed changes to the SOQ include enhanced principal and assistant principal staffing, reading specialists and lower speech language pathology caseloads. Regarding teacher salaries, the state budgeted salary figure (on which it bases its share of teacher costs) falls well below both the statewide and national averages. For FY04, the state budget amount was only about 85% of the statewide average salary and 80% of the national average. About three-quarters of the state’s school divisions pay more to their teachers than the state budgeted salary amount. Concerning apportionment of education funding, the state should consider the effects on localities of such factors as land use taxation, revenue sharing and poverty. Regarding school capital needs, we continue to urge state financial assistance with school construction and renovation needs. We also remain concerned about the continued raiding of the Literary Fund, historically used to provide low interest loans for school construction, to pay for teacher retirement. Finally, as our school divisions make progress toward meeting the Standards of Accreditation (SOA) accountability goals for both schools and students, and face increased costs for complying with accountability provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, any reductions in state education funding would hinder the efforts being made.
The Planning District’s member localities support full funding of the state pool for the Comprehensive Services Act (CSA), with allocations based on realistic anticipated levels of need, and a cap on local expenditures for serving a child through CSA. Since the inception of the Comprehensive Services Act over a decade ago, there has been pressure to hold down costs, to cap state costs for serving mandated children, to increase local match levels and to make the program more uniform by attempting to control how localities run their programs. During this time, state and local costs of residential and non-residential mandated services continued to increase. Initial state appropriations for CSA typically fall short each year, challenging the state to find its share of funding and forcing localities to request supplemental state appropriations. Many localities across the state exhaust their annual base allocation before the end of the year. We believe the distinction between base and supplemental budgets should be eliminated. We also support a state cap on local expenditures to combat higher local costs for serving mandated children, costs which in many instances are driven by unanticipated placements in a locality. We support enhanced state funding for CSA administrative costs and services for non-mandated children. We believe that the categories of populations mandated for services should not be expanded unless the state pays all the costs. We urge the state to establish state contracts with CSA providers to provide for a uniform contract management process, improve vendor accountability and control costs. We also encourage the state to be proactive in making service providers available, especially in rural areas, and to support local and regional efforts to address areas of cost sharing among localities by procuring services through group negotiation.
We encourage the state to make Compensation Board funding a top priority. The Compensation Board should fully fund local positions that fall under its purview. It should not increase the local share of funding constitutional offices or divert funding away from local offices, but increase money needed for their operation. Local governments continue to provide much supplemental funding for constitutional officer budgets, which were shortchanged in recent years. The state should not adopt language that would disallow exemptions from the federal prisoner offset and should maintain the per diem payment to localities for housing state-responsible prisoners. We encourage shared funding by the state of the costs to construct and operate regional jails; however, we do not believe the state should operate local and regional jails. In addition, we support the following:
The Planning District’s member localities oppose any preemption or circumvention of existing local authority to regulate land use and encourage the state to provide local governments with additional tools to manage growth. Current land use authority often is inadequate to allow local governments to provide for balanced, sustainable growth in a manner that protects and improves quality of life. This has posed particular challenges for fast-growing localities, which often need additional powers to shape and mange growth. Unfortunately, in recent years, the state has limited local governments in their efforts to manage growth by enacting provisions that reduced local authority to implement the comprehensive plan or to regulate land use. The state should resist any further restrictions on these local powers. To enhance the ability of local governments to pay for infrastructure costs and to support services associated with new developments, we support legislation allowing localities to adopt ordinances that include provisions for determining whether public facilities are adequate (“adequate public facility,” or APF ordinances). Such ordinances require that proposals for new residential projects provide payment for or be timed to coordinate with construction or upgrade of public facilities necessitated by the new development. In addition, we have the following recommendations:
The Planning District’s member localities recognize economic development and workforce training as essential to the continued viability of the Commonwealth. We support policies that closely link the goals of economic development and workforce development and that result in an increased standard of living for all residents.
The Planning District’s member localities believe that environmental quality should be funded and promoted through a comprehensive approach and address air and water quality, solid waste management, land conservation and land use policies. We are committed to the protection and enhancement of the environment and recognize the need to achieve a proper balance between environmental regulation and the socio-economic health of our communities within the constraints of available revenues. Such an approach requires regional cooperation due to the inter-jurisdictional nature of many environmental resources and adequate state funding to support local and regional efforts. We believe the following
The Planning District’s member localities recognize that special attention must be given to developing circumstances under which people, especially the disabled, the poor, the young and the elderly, can achieve their full potential. Reductions to community agencies are especially troublesome, as their activities often end up preventing more costly services later. The delivery of health and human services must be a collaborative effort from federal, state and local agencies. We urge the General Assembly to ensure funding is available to continue such valuable preventive services.
The Planning District’s member localities believe that every citizen should have an opportunity to afford decent, safe and sanitary housing. The state and local governments should work toward expanding and preserving the supply and improving the quality of affordable housing for the elderly, the disabled and low- and moderate-income households. Regional housing solutions and planning should be implemented whenever possible.
The Planning District’s member localities believe that since so many governmental actions take place at the local level, a strong local government system is essential. Local governments must have the freedom and tools to carry out their responsibilities.
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