Monthly Archives: October 2014

Two ships that pass in the night

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Today, via Neal Goswami of the Mitchell Family Organ:

A report released Wednesday based on an internal review of the Department for Children and Families does not recommend restructuring the agency, but does seek immediate boosts to staffing, additional staff training and better collaboration between the department and its partners.

Yesterday, via them damn commies at the Public Assets Institute:

A month after announcing a 2 percent cut to the current year’s budget, the Shumlin Administration is signaling its intention to make additional cuts of as much as 5 percent and possibly more next year (fiscal 2016).

Well, that looks like a conundrum in the making.

Human Services Secretary Harry Chen, the presumably more loyal and/or pliable replacement for the cashiered Doug Racine, now has a report that says his agency needs more resources. Which probably induces a rueful chuckle from Mr. Racine.

And now this report will duke it out with the Administration’s budget instructions reportedly given to its top managers:

The administration laid out two scenarios for fiscal 2016:

— Level funding—the same amount appropriated for this fiscal year after the cuts adopted in August.

— Five percent cut from fiscal 2015 levels—again after the August cuts.

As PAI notes, the best-case scenario — level funding — would mean cutbacks, since there are built-in cost increases: “cost of living increases for state employees, caseload increases, contractual increases, loss of federal funding, inflation, and other new demands…”

The AHS/DCF review was initiated by then-Secretary Racine. Will Dr. Chen back up the report’s conclusions? Or will he bend to the apparent belt-tightening mandate from above? According to the PAI report, he’s got about two weeks to turn in his budget recommendations.

This should go well.

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Hey, what’s this on my Twitter feed?

Now, there’s big news. Dan the Libertarian Man wants to raise $100,000 in two days.

Ahem. As it happens, today is campaign finance filing day, and Dan — being the efficiency maven that he is — filed his report early. And it says here that in the past month, he’s raised a massive $3,528. Which brings his campaign total to $17,014.

So… in 48 hours, he’s going to beat his total for the entire campaign by a factor of six.

Yeah, let me know how that goes for ya.

Unless he’s got a whole buncha Sugar Daddies waiting in the weeds, he won’t raise 100 G’s or anything like it. But with a bit of luck, he might raise enough to get his campaign out of debt. Expenditures to date: $28,505.59. He’s only been able to pay the bills and keep the lights on because he donated $10,000 to his own campaign.

So much for #Felicianomentum. If a grassroots movement is afoot, it sure doesn’t show up in his finances. In the past month he received a mere 15 donations, or roughly one every two days. Seven were less than $100 apiece. Of the other eight, six came from outside of Vermont. And for the campaign to date, only 32 people have opened their wallets on Dan’s behalf. For those unfamiliar with campaign finance, let’s just say those are really small numbers.

In his situation, any little boost he can get from this fundraising blitz will help. But he’s certain to fall embarrassingly short of his extremely large goal. (Again, unless he’s got a lot of Ayn Rand fans on his “In Case Of Campaign Emergency, Break Glass” list.) Why not aim for $20,000? He might possibly, maybe, achieve that. Or get close enough to plausibly declare victory.

The short answer is, he needs $100,000 to build #Felicianomentum toward Election Day. But no matter how much he actually raises, it’s going to look small compared to his stated goal.

Oh well, I wish him luck.

p.s. The Grammar Lady in me can’t resist noting that “& etc” is redundant. Use your characters wisely, Dan; you only get 140 at a time.