LeMunyon Briefs Constituents on 2011 General Assembly Session

hosted a town hall Saturday to brief constituents on the 2011 General Assembly session and hear about the issues that matter to them.

LeMunyon (R-67th District) discussed education, transportation, jobs and the economy, and issues of "good government" with more than 40 people at the Sully Government Center in Chantilly.

Transportation issues received the most focus at the town hall meeting, with both LeMunyon and his constituents offering up solutions and lamenting missed opportunities for solving congestion and funding problems.

LeMunyon proposed legislation that would've rated transportation projects in Northern Virginia and rate them based on what they do to solve congestion and how much it would cost to come up with a list of priorities. It passed the House, but not the Senate.

"I'm sorry to say a representative from Fairfax County came down to Richmond to testify against it because they want the latitude to spend money on transportation as they see fit and not be tied to the idea that it solves congestion problems," LeMunyon said. "I disagree with that fundamentally as a matter of policy."

One audience member said he has lowered his expectations for Northern Virginia solving the transportation problem.

"I remain very skeptical that Virginia's ever going to get the funding situation on transportation squared away. I've given up on that. All I really want is for some roads to be paved. I don't think I'm asking too much. ... So my question is very simple: When do you think my road will be paved?" he asked.

LeMunyon said the state budget did not allocate any more money than it did last year for road maintenance, but he encourages people to continually call the Virginia Department of Transportation's hotline to report potholes at 800-367-7623 until the problem is solved.

"These folks reiterated what we've understood all along, and that is there's a lot of money on the table now for roads and there's a lot of different ways we can spend that and we need to make sure we get our fair share in Northern Virginia," LeMunyon said in an interview after the meeting. "Even though my bill didn't pass on congestion reduction, it's still where people are aiming."

LeMunyon also discussed what the delegate called "good government" issues, which touched on transparency and efficiency in government — a theme in many of his proposals.

"I'm a big believer in transparency," he said after the meeting. "Those bills tend to lend themselves to bipartisan support. And I'll be honest with you, the more people who can see inside the government and how it works, the more they'll probably like government on the smaller side rather than the bigger side because they'll see that the bigger it is, the more inefficient it is."

In his presentation to the public, he referenced his proposal, the final version of which passed unanimously, that requires the state to inventory property annually.

"The hope is that we may find a few things that we don't need and can sell to the benefit of the budget," LeMunyon said. "Half the money goes to the general fund and half the money goes into the parks fund. ... The idea is to make that list public so that if there are people who are looking for land or buildings, they can find it."

Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has not yet signed this bill into law.

One of LeMunyon's bills that has been signed by McDonnell promotes more transparency on bond referendums, requiring every purpose for the bond money that's greater than 10 percent of the total to be defined.

Also discussed:

EDUCATION

The governor's veto on requiring 150 minutes to physical education:

• "Given all the other requirements that are already placed on schools, Standards of Learning, standardized tests and all that, he didn't see and I didn't see how that was all going to fit," said LeMunyon, who voted against it.

• "What about the good government aspect of this? We've voted for this School Board and they're presumably very interested in issues like this. How do people justify taking that authority away from them and legislating it?" said one man in the audience. LeMunyon's reply: "I really look with a little bit of a skeptical eye on how much we want to micromanage the local school boards, even if we don't like what they're doing sometimes."

Additional seats added to William & Mary, Virginia Tech, University of Virginia and James Madison University:

• "I don't want to overstate that. It's a 3 percent increase over the next three years. There's no requirement that it be in-state, out-of-state, Northern Virginia or otherwise, but I thought it was a good start," LeMunyon said. "Again it gets to that question of how much do we micromanage, whether it's our local school boards or our universities. There's a give and take on that."
• "Is it true that illegal immigrants are taking seats in our colleges?" one man in the audience asked. LeMunyon's reply: "To the best of my knowledge we do not. ... The four schools that I mentioned informed us that they do not knowingly [admit illegal immigrants]. Now are they asking for a passport or immigration documents? No. And frankly that's an onerous responsibility on them if we were to basically make them immigration enforcement officers. That's not where I'd like to see them go."

Legislation proposing a cap on out-of-state students at public universities that did not pass the General Assembly:

• LeMunyon: "The argument the universities make is we need that out-of-state tuition to cover our costs. I accepted that point until I went and looked up on some of those websites students use to look up college. I went to William & Mary and it said something like 'People who applied to William & Mary also applied to these other schools: Cornell, Wake Forest, University of Richmond.' How much are they charging? Well taxes, tags and delivery, 50,000 bucks a year. On average, $10,000 more than William & Mary charges an out-of-state student. So I went back and said, 'I hear your argument that you need out-of-state tuition. Will you please charge fair market rate?"

STATE PENSIONS

• LeMunyon: "With state pensions, I don't want to scare you. We're not in bad shape here, but we need to get better. The governor wanted to take that issue on this session, and I was with him on that, but we couldn't get a consensus between the House and Senate on how to address it. We're about $100 to $300 million short in the state pension fund in terms of the state's contribution."