Oversight and Governance in Warren County

Admittedly, I have done my best to read all information available on both sides of the Samuels library issue.

I keep reading from the supervisor’s viewpoint. I have emailed them 10 times with no response, so reading the news is my main source of information about why they think there is a lack of financial responsibility and governance at the library. Everything they state seems to allude to the citizenship that the board of supervisors is the best at providing said governance.

I began thinking that I was missing some sort of expertise in their resumes. That is when I decided to do some research to see what I was missing that the board was possibly working on about other important governance issues in Warren County—benefit of the doubt, so to say.

Not having taxpayer dollars to fund my research and analysis, as Jamieson and Cook had, I turned to Virginia Governor Younkin’s State of the State reports and the United States Census Bureau for my data and analysis. I used key governance metrics published by the United States Census Bureau and Virginia Governor Younkin. I believe the citizens of Warren County deserve to see the following analysis and hope you will either print this letter in your commentary section or, even better, expose’ an article on the disastrous numbers I have found that the supervisors seem uninterested in.

The governance issues I examined were three of the most simple and agreed-upon issues affecting all of Warren County and Virginia.

• Poverty Level – in Virginia, the overall Poverty Level stands at 10.2%
• Unemployment Rate – in Virginia, the overall Unemployment Rate stands at 2.9%
• Lack of Healthcare – in Virginia, the overall People without Healthcare Stands at 6.4%

For Warren County, the numbers from highest to lowest for these three very important governance issues, collected, analyzed, and reported by the US Census Bureau and specifically for each of the five districts of Warren County, follows:

• Poverty Level
  • Shenandoah District/Stanmeyer 17.9%
  • North River District/Jamieson 15.5%
  • South River District/Cullers 10.8%
  • Fork District/Cook 9.9%
  • Happy Creek District/Butler 7.2%
• Unemployment
  • Shenandoah District/Stanmeyer 41.4%
  • North River District/Jamieson 43.7%
  • South River District/Cullers 37%
  • Fork District/Cook 43.7%
• No Healthcare
  • Shenandoah District/Stanmeyer 12.6%
  • North River District/Jamieson 8%
  • South River District/Cullers 10.9%
  • Fork District/Cook 11%

In my humble opinion, these numbers do not reflect great governance or fiduciary responsibility, especially since so much time has been devoted to the library and NONE to the issues above. Is good governance just picking and choosing the easy issues and neglecting other issues, especially the living standards of fellow Warren Countians? I think not.

One other thing I looked at was school funding in Warren County. The state code states that the supervisors are to set aside funds for the schools based on the levy and SEVEN distinct funding areas, and then the school board works within those numbers.

Our board waits on the school board, and carte-blanc funds them. We never hear any governance issues as they empty our (taxpayer) bucket. According to the Virginia school board, Warren County ranks 198th in Virginia based on SOLs, etc. Just think, with some REAL governance and fiduciary responsibility, Warren County Schools could improve 177 spots and still not be in the top 20 of Virginia schools.

How about withholding their funds till accredited? With some REAL governance and fiduciary responsibility, Warren County schools could actually become fully, not provisionally, accredited. The schools that did not even get provisional accreditation could improve.

How long will the school board and board of supervisors continue to blame the 2020 COVID pandemic? That was more than 4 years now. Imagine, Samuel’s Library was number 1 in the state. They went through COVID also. It will never be number 1 again once the Warren County Board of Egos, oops, I mean Supervisors, gets done. Maybe the school board should take some lessons from the library on how to, at a minimum, get into the top 25 school systems in Virginia.

I hope these numbers are as important to county citizens as they were to me as I uncovered them. The numbers really detail what is and is not important to the supervisors elected to represent WE THE PEOPLE…

Lastly, now that the Board of Supervisors has gone against the in-person public sentiment at the public hearings, claiming the majority of the input they received from unknown, undocumented, therefore unproven, constituency, who did not go to the public hearing to be heard, we can only hope that their efforts will turn to governance of other issues affecting Warren County in the same zealous manner. My guess is they will not; however, I would love to be PROVEN wrong. But, as Mark Twain once opined, Don’t bet the ranch on it because you will possibly be sleeping on the prairie. In this case, the Stanmeyer and Jamesion poverty ridden districts as documented by the United States Census Bureau.

Maybe if Jamesion and Cook did a PowerPoint presentation on these items, they would get the point.

Matthew S. Myers
Front Royal

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