Goverment & Citizens

The year that President Bush was elected into office, the year 2000 the Virginia State Bar changed from addressing "strategy" with Code of Professional Responsibility to avoiding "strategy" with Professional Guidelines and Rules of Professional Conduct.

Currently local Department of Social Services budget years are June 1 to May 31 of each year which is different from the state and local government budget years years are July 1 to June 30. 

Have the DSS budgets, state and local, the same for efficiciency and logical reasons.

Greetings:

Use mass media ideas to government advantage. Provide local DSS/health dept offices with various propaganda (for lack of better word) to run on looped tv in waiting areas. My personal preference would be to have dvd or vhs of basics of child care/ discipline techniques/ what to do with a crying baby. Why not use this format to saturate clients with skills to prevent child abuse and neglect from the beginning? Also, make sure a piece about birth control options as available at health dept is included  (right after screaming baby sequence).

VDSS uses contractors with VCU  to conduct training. Go back to regional specialists doing the training. It will save money and give more consistent guidance to line workers. Statewide, workers would get the same information in the same way. Record  update trainings for future use/reference and have on DSS website.

The state should take another look at or re-tool the SWAM policy. These vendors, when competing on prices, should be within $5 to $10, no more. Not $20 to $50 more. But ,because they are SWAM vendors state agencies have to purchase from them. Why can't state departments or agencies make purchases for items at the lowest prices? This could save thousands of dollars.

Why do upper administrators receive a housing allowance when they already are being paid anywhere from $60K to $100K + a year ? An example of this is wardens and assistant wardens can receive a $5,400 a year housing allowance if they want it. This would be approximately 70 individuals and they would receive @ $378,000 a year. However, If an individual applies for, interviews and receives one of these positions then they should receive assistance for approximately 6 months to help in moving, etc.

Dear Governor Kaine,

There appears to be several hundred different agencies listed at the official Virginia government website.  Many of them contain similar words in their agency titles.  How much repetitive work is being performed by more than one agency?  Why not consolidate agencies that do similar work, or eliminate some of them altogether?  We could probably save thousands of dollars by downsizing the quantity of Virginia agencies.