prince william county public schools

prince william county public schools

Virginia Virtucon recently endorsed Julie Lucas for the Republican prince william county public schools for delegate in the 51st District.  A few people have inquired as to Lucass issue specifics and wondered why we did not delve deeply into Julies platform.  At the time Virtucon issued its endorsement, Julie had yet to formally release her positions.  Although we had communicated with her and knew her various stands, we did not want to get out prince william county public schools of the campaign on this.  prince william county public schools even in the blogosphere, you have to give the candidate the opportunity to unveil their own agenda.  (Similarly, we knew about Julies planned entrance into the race a week before we wrote about it and held off for the same reasons.)

Well, now Julie has up her campaign web sites issues page and you will see below just why Virginia Virtucon is very comfortable supporting her for Delegate:

Transportation - Create effective solutions

We all hear about our transportation problems, but we should focus on transportation solutions. Living in Northern Virginia we tend to plan everything we do around traffic. We start and end our day in traffic and on the weekends dread having to go near I-95. Transportation has become a major Quality of Life issue and Julie wants to do everything she can to help you spend more time with your family and less time stuck in traffic! We must accomplish this by working together as an entire delegation to create solutions. Julie has experience working with people from both sides of the aisle to make things happen. She will do the same in Richmond to help create effective transportation solutions and will fight for Prince William Countys fair share of transportation dollars! Julie supports:

Locking up the transportation trust fund Dedicating 50% of the States surplus from the general fund for transportation projects

Measures to help take cars off the roads such as Mass Transit, Teleworkers, and helping to bring more businesses to William County

Bond funding to help complete Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) road projects and improvements

In Prince William County we fund many of our capital improvement projects with bond funding. We should consider similar bonds to aid our State transportation projects to help ease congestion faster and take advantage of Virginias AAA bond rating to fund debt prince william county public schools lower interest rates. However, we must protect Virginias AAA bond rating and only use bonding in cases where we would not jeopardize our rating by incurring too much debt.

According to Virginias Future Mobility report released in February 2007 by TRIP, a nonprofit organization that promotes transportation policies relieve traffic congestion, Virginia faces a $105 billion dollar backlog through 2025 in funding road improvements and public transit projects. Dedicating 50% of our States surplus to fund transportation could step up timelines to complete important VDOT projects currently in the pipeline like widening I-95 from Route 123 at the Occoquan to the Fairfax County Parkway. Construction is to begin in 2008 and is expected to take 4 years to complete. According to VDOT this section of I-95 currently carries about 212,000 a day. A fourth lane will be added North and Southbound which will help ease the back up that occurs daily in this area. We cannot allow the backlog of road projects to continue and must do everything we can to change the course of our transportation crisis!

Education - Fully fund, ensure high expectations, and accountability As the Neabsco School Board Representative for the past 4 years, Julie has experience managing close to a billion dollar budget. She has seen what works, and what does not work, at the local level. State funding of education is critical to the success of a local school division. Julie supports fully funding education and believes the focus of funding should be in the classroom. Lower student/teacher ratios. We all understand the importance of lower class sizes to benefit the educational development of our children. Julie would work with the prince william county public schools Board of Education to lower the student/teacher ratio funding formula. Lower class sizes will benefit our children and help ease the burden on local jurisdictions that have to make up the difference in cost or be left increase class sizes.

End un-funded mandates. As a School Board Julie has seen prince william county public schools end result of un-funded mandates handed down by the State. Julie will not support unnecessary mandates being passed on to our local jurisdictions.

Opening our doors to all Virginia students. Working with her fellow School Board members Julie changed the Prince William County School Divisions policy to allow Home School and Private School students to attend up to 2 credit bearing classes a semester with transportation provided by the school system at the beginning and end of the day if the students schedule fits with our bus route schedule. Julie would support other jurisdictions in the State following Prince William County Public Schools lead.

Hiring and retaining teachers. We must continue to focus on hiring and retaining quality prince william county public schools In prince william county public schools to achieve this goal we must stay competitive with teacher salaries and review the cost of competing pay structure in Northern Virginia.

Partnering with our business community. Business partnerships have been prince william county public schools successful in Prince William County and have saved the school division thousands of dollars. Julie believes our success stories in Prince William County Public Schools should be shared with the rest of the Commonwealth. Sharing our success will help other jurisdictions benefit from our experience with partnerships with our business community which, in turn, will help other school divisions become more efficient& the end result being fewer resources needed from the state.

Affordable higher education. Paying for college is becoming unaffordable for our families. Julie supports immediate freezing of tuitions at our public universities to help ease the burden on families to pay for their childrens college education. Freezing tuition will allow relief from recent rate hikes and Julie wants to study the impact of allowing future tuition increases to be tied to our average inflation rate.

Public Safety - Ensuring a safe place to live and raise our families Julies experience on the School Board has exposed her to many current problems that affect our children. Two areas Julie will focus on in Richmond are Internet Safety and Gang Prevention. She is currently working to create a partnership between the Attorney Generals office and the Boys and Girls Club to teach Internet Safety to our children and how to help prevent kids from making the wrong decision by joining a gang. The Class Action program is sponsored by the Attorney Generals office and is funded by a grant so no tax dollars prince william county public schools expended to provide this program. As your Delegate for the prince william county public schools District, Julie will work closely with our Attorney General, Bob McDonnell, to continue to protect our children from child predators on the Internet, protect the elderly from Internet scams and help combat Identity Theft.

Julie also supports reviewing the current pay structure for our State Police. Essential personnel are vital to our safety in Virginia. We must attract and retain highly qualified employees and ensure our compensation is competitive.

Illegal prince william county public schools size="2" face="arial">We see the impact of illegal immigration more and more every day. We cannot promote and encourage illegal activity. We also cannot allow our local jurisdictions hands to be tied with this issue. Julie supports entering into a MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) to form a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security allowing ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) training for employees at our jails, our state police department, and our local law enforcement officials. We must do everything we can to keep Prince William and all Virginians safe and keep repeat criminal offenders off the streets. According the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department, the ICE training program provides necessary resources and latitude to pursue investigations relating to violent crimes, human smuggling, gang/organized crime activity, sexual-related offenses, narcotics smuggling, and money laundering; and allows increased resources and support in more geographical locations. This program will allow our local and state law enforcement officials to fulfill their duty to keep everyone safe. (Link here) Julie does not support using tax dollars to day laborer facilities.

Taxes - Understanding the burden on the average Virginia Tax Payer

Julie fully supports completing the states commitment to finally END the car tax! Julie fully supports the ending of the death tax and as your Delegate she will make sure the death tax doesnt get a second life in Virginia!

As a fiscal conservative, Julie knows that the answer is not just more money. Julie supports an efficiency review, just as the prince william county public schools William County School Division is currently undergoing, of the States entire budget to look for cost savings and possible tax savings to all Virginians. Julie will always look internally for savings or other alternatives, to allow families to focus on their needs vs. government wants.

Protecting Our Families and Sanctity of Life Julie supports all law abiding citizens 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms and will work to protect that right, while at the same time cracking down on criminals who are using guns to commit crimes. Julie is Pro-Life and is believer prince william county public schools protecting those that are not able to protect themselves.

Controlling Growth

Julie has experienced the impact of explosive residential growth. As a resident of the 51st District and a School Board member, Julie prince william county public schools seen the impact of growth on our over crowded schools. We must work together with our local elected officials to empower them to help address this issue. Julie supports SB 1356 (2007) sponsored by State Senator Jay OBrien, which ensures developers provide for adequate public facilities prior to beginning residential development. We cannot allow development without providing the necessary infrastructure to support the community.

Economic Development - Keeping Virginia a Business Friendly State Being a small business owner, Julie understands the struggles and risks in starting a business and also understands the importance of keeping our state business friendly. Archaic taxes like the BPOL tax (which was originally created to fund the war of 1812) must be reviewed in order to promote prince william county public schools business development in Virginia. We should increase the current gross revenue level business owners pay taxes on or eliminate the tax entirely to help small businesses prosper and stay in business which will help the entire economy in Virginia. Small businesses help keep jobs close to where people live, so this helps take more cars off the roads which helps ease traffic congestion!

Health Care - Look to private industry to help, not just the government!

Being in the financial services industry, Julie is fully aware of the rising costs of heath care and specifically the growing need for Long Term Care insurance. Julie saw a need that was not currently being met in Virginia and worked to help ALL Virginians by successfully lobbying the General Assembly to change the insurance law in order to help her clients. House Bill 1294 (2002) was drafted, per her suggestion, which allows insurance companies to provide a Chronic Illness rider to their life insurance polices. This rider allows Virginians to take a portion of their life insurance death benefit, while they are alive, to for medical expenses that they might not otherwise be to afford. Many Virginians cannot afford Long Term Care policies so by having this rider on their insurance policies they have the ability to cover some of their medical expenses. Julie works with insurance companies that offer this rider for free and would encourage other companies in Virginia to follow. If more Virginians had a policy with this free rider then the end result would be less people relying on the government to take care of their long term care needs.

Julie will continue to look for ways to improve prince william county public schools current health care system in Virginia without increasing taxes!

In Summary As a proven elected official, small business owner, and experienced leader Julie Lucas will continue with creative, innovative solutions to ensure we have the most efficient government without over burdening families, business owners and citizens of the 51st District with excessive government mandates and taxation.

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Post je objavljen 17.01.2008. u 19:45 sati.