2017 General Assembly and Constituent Survey

Focus on Fairfax

Jan. 13, 2017

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Greetings from Richmond! This past Wednesday, the Virginia General Assembly was gaveled in to start our 2017 legislative session. I am pleased that I will continue to serve on the Education, General Laws, and Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources committees. General Laws deals with housing, Freedom of Information Act, professional licensure, procurement, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and a host of other areas.

This year is a "short" session - which lasts 45 days. Despite the compressed time-frame, there is a lot of work to do. So far, 941 bills and multiple constitutional amendments have been introduced in the House alone. You can see the full list here. Even more daunting is the task of addressing a roughly $1.2 billion budget shortfall due to lower than anticipated revenue. Although it requires tough decisions, I am proud that the Constitution of Virginia requires us to adopt a balanced budget.

As we begin the process of debating these bills and amendments to the budget, I hope you will take a few moments to share your thoughts by filling out my 2017 Constituent Survey. Your feedback is invaluable as I consider how to vote. I will provide the results of the survey later during the session so that you can see what I am hearing from the community.

So far this year I have introduced 11 bills, and will likely introduce three more. I will provide updates on these bills throughout the session, but wanted to highlight one that I am still working on and will likely introduce early next week. In late December, I was contacted by investigative reporter Scott McFarlane from NBC4, who was running a story about teachers who had admitted to sexually assaulting students but were able to find work in other school districts because their teaching licenses had not been revoked. The primary cause was that the incidents were not reported to the state Department of Education in a timely manner. Tragically, Fairfax County Public Schools was at the center of the investigation. A follow up discussion by me with staff from the Department of Education revealed some real weaknesses in the current reporting and revocation process. While everyone should be afforded due process, it is absolutely essential that these issues are brought to the attention of the state licensing agency early and that perpetrators can't use the time between when a problem is identified and when the individual is convicted to find another teaching position. You can see the NBC4 report here. After the report, I was sad to receive several emails from individuals who had experienced similar situations.

I love our schools, and am proud that my three children attended or currently attend Fairfax County Public Schools. Gretchen and I both graduated from Robinson Secondary. We owe it to all of our children to fix this problem. Special thanks to the staff from the Department of Education for working with me on language to do just that. Stay tuned!

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or if you want to advocate for or against legislation being considered by the General Assembly. Also, I hope you will join me for my annual Town Hall meeting on Saturday, February 11th at Fairfax City Hall. I will be joined by Senator Chap Petersen. Visit www.davidbulova.com for more details.