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August 30th, 2023

 

Contact Information:
Faraldi for Lynchburg

(434) 515-2167

hello@chrisfaraldi.com

 

— Vice Mayor Faraldi Fact Checks Democrat Nominee In HOD52 For Disingenuous Statements On School Funding — 

 

Lynchburg, VA — This November, all 140 seats in the General Assembly will be on the ballot, and surely one of the main items voters will be considering is education. Lynchburg's new seat is House of Delegates 52 (HOD52) and includes the city along with a small portion of Campbell County. 

 

On August 25th, the Democratic nominee for HOD52 published a campaign video citing education as her number one issue. 

A portion of the clip contains the following quote:
 

"The governor teased more funding to schools but never got a budget through the door.

Meanwhile, locally, our city council has cut $1.4 million from our public school system."

— Jennifer Woofter, Democratic Nominee for HOD52.

 

The statement above is categorically inaccurate on every front. In fact, the Governor did get a "budget through the door" and city council did not "cut $1.4 million from our public school system" as demonstrated below:

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• In 2022, the Governor and General Assembly adopted a budget which included the following for education in Virginia: $3.2 billion in direct aid to education, 5% salary increases two years in a row plus a $1,000 bonus, more than $3 billion in school construction and renovation(s), $45 million to fund school resource officers, $100 million for the lab school expansion program, and more. In 2023, Democrat leadership in the General Assembly have repeatedly refused to come to the negotiation table on how to allocate the nearly $5 billion surplus dollars taxed from Virginians. 

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• Lynchburg City Council did not cut $1.4 million from Lynchburg City Schools. In fact, the overall budget grew. While local funding from the city did decrease by $1.4 million, the line-item for Instruction increased by several million dollars. This represents the largest investment into city classrooms in the history of Lynchburg City Schools. 

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Vice Mayor Chris Faraldi, the Ward IV Representative on Lynchburg City Council, issued the following statement in response to the Democratic Nominee: 

 

When a political candidate continues to say, 'Republicans on Council voted to gut funding from schools' and that statement is used as a baseline for a campaign while that candidate intentionally fails to articulate the full picture, it is grossly disingenuous. Lynchburg doesn't need another politician who twists the facts to feed a political narrative... voters need results, not rhetoric.

 

Thanks to Governor Glenn Youngkin and Lynchburg's Delegates and Senators, combined with local investment, Lynchburg City Schools still received the greatest and most strategic budget ever witnessed. Without equivocation, Governor Glenn Youngkin and his Republican colleagues in the General Assembly have and continue to strive for the very same thing — putting greater emphasis on teachers and front line educators, only to be left waiting for Democrats to one day, maybe come to the table. 

Here is reality — this city council appropriated the single-greatest investment ever for Lynchburg Classrooms. We prioritized teachers, students, and parents like never before by putting tax dollars into instruction before the Central Office/Administration. It may seem very minor to get caught up on semantics, but with thousands of children on the line and billions of your tax dollars at stake, words are important, and we need leaders who know what they are talking about.

To be blunt, if one is running for the House of Delegates, then perhaps they should focus more on Jefferson's Capitol rather than City Hall. 

 

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Chris Faraldi, a conservative Republican, is the Ward IV Representative and Vice Mayor of Lynchburg City Council.