Julian Walker
The Virginian-Pilot
©
NORFOLK
Commissioner of Revenue Sharon McDonald took an aide with her when she racked up thousands of dollars in bills while lobbying state lawmakers - even when one official says it ran counter to Norfolk's interests.
In at least one case, their work, which took place at the State Capitol over much of the eight-week session, almost caused Norfolk to lose more than $1 million in annual revenue, said Bryan Pennington, Norfolk's director of intergovernmental relations.
City officials say McDonald's efforts were not authorized. Bringing along an aide is unusual for commissioners of revenue, who seldom stay in Richmond more than a few days and almost always travel unattended.
Mayor Paul Fraim is concerned and has asked the city's auditor to wrap up his investigation into McDonald's use of a city-issued credit card. McDonald, a state employee, said this week that City Auditor John Sanderlin has expanded his inquiry to include all of her office's financial records for the last five years.
She said she did not have to provide Sanderlin with any records since he is a city employee. However, she has handed over the information, she said, "because I have nothing to hide."
The Virginian-Pilot revealed two weeks ago that Sanderlin is reviewing tens of thousands of dollars McDonald charged on a city-issued credit card while lobbying for the Commissioners of the Revenue Association of Virginia in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 General Assembly sessions in Richmond.
The association reimbursed the city for about $16,000 in travel expenses in 2009 and 2010, according to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. However, McDonald charged at least $11,400 of lobbying expenses on a city credit card in 2008 and did not reimburse the city. Since learning of McDonald's spending in April, Norfolk has reduced the number of city credit cards from 440 to eight.
McDonald said she has done nothing illegal. She is the victim of vicious rumor-mongering by political opponents, she said.
She was re-elected to her $136,167-a-year position last year.
"I'm not going to allow people who don't like me change the way I serve the taxpayers of the city of Norfolk," she said.
The main job of commissioner of revenue is to assess taxes. Norfolk supplements McDonald's office budget and pays the salaries for 11 employees to help generate tax revenue.
According to city documents, McDonald took William Neill III with her and registered him as a lobbyist for the 2010 session for the state Commissioners of the Revenue Association. Neill's $34,951 salary is paid by the city of Norfolk.
In addition to issuing business licenses and assessing business taxes, Neill's job description as a license inspector also includes appearing in court and investigating complaints of tax code violations. Lobbying is not listed.
McDonald said Neill was needed to help her perform dozens of tasks she did not have time for. She said he conducted research, wrote memos and oversaw her schedule while in Richmond.
Thirty-seven employees work in the commissioner of revenue's office.
"All of my employees are used where they are most needed at the time," McDonald said. "Whether they are city or state, I don't look at that. I put them where I need them."
State Sen. Ralph Northam, D-Norfolk, said he saw Neill a lot.
"A majority of the time she was there, he was there as well," he said. "I don't remember him lobbying me on any particular issues. I saw him more as her aide."
Unlike McDonald, other commissioners said they never brought aides from their office while lobbying.
McDonald said her primary job was to talk to state lawmakers about issues that affected commissioners of revenue around the state. She made it clear to state officials that she was not lobbying on behalf of the city, she said.
But Pennington said many senators and delegates told him they believed McDonald represented the city.
Pennington lives in Richmond during each General Assembly session. He is the only employee authorized to speak for Norfolk during the sessions, City Manager Regina V.K. Williams said.
"You've only got a short amount of time with these legislators because they are so busy," Pennington said. "It was frustrating to have to continually tell them that Sharon was not a lobbyist for the city."
While he praised her work, Del. Bob Tata, R-Virginia Beach, said he thought McDonald represented the city and the association.
"I don't have anything but good things to say about her," Tata said, noting that she hosted a reception at Town Center in Virginia Beach after a General Assembly session. "It wasn't elaborate at all.
"It was just a meeting so she could plead her case," he said. "I don't fault her for that. I sort of admired the way she went at it. Her office was cut significantly and she was up there trying to save jobs."
McDonald said nobody from the council questioned her lobbying. "They know that I'm there because I have had conversations with them regularly," she said. "I talked to the mayor on at least four different occasions" during the last General Assembly session.
Pennington said McDonald worked against the city when she supported a budget proposal this year that would have diverted more than $41 million in yearly telecommunications tax revenues from cities and counties to constitutional officers.
The proposal would have cost Norfolk about $1 million annually, he said.
Her actions caused so much animosity, he said, that in January, McDonald was banished from weekly strategy sessions held by Virginia Municipal League lobbyists. The league represents and lobbies on behalf of most Virginia cities and towns and many counties.
McDonald said the telecommunications tax was not her proposal and she never lobbied for it. She tried to speak to Pennington about his concerns, but he declined to return her phone calls and e-mail, she said.
Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax, said he doesn't know of any other commissioner of revenue who spends as much time in Richmond as McDonald.
"She's up there a lot," he said.
McDonald's Richmond visits dwarf the trips made by commissioners of revenue from other local localities and other Commissioners of the Revenue Association representatives.
According to her travel expenses, McDonald was in Richmond on weekdays for most of the past three General Assembly sessions.
Suffolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake commissioners of revenue said they generally visit Richmond no more than a handful of times during the session and generally ask their cities to reimburse them only for mileage.
Now that he's first vice president of the state Commissioners of the Revenue Association, Hanover County's T. Scott Harris estimated he made the trip to the legislature "seven or eight times" during the 2010 session.
That's up from the three or four visits per session he makes "in a normal year," Harris added, noting, "I probably go more frequently than a lot of people" because his Hanover office is about 25 miles from Richmond.
Like McDonald, Augusta County Commissioner of Revenue W. Jean Shrewsbury also is past president of the association. They both currently serve as co-chairs of its legislative committee.
McDonald, Shrewsbury said, "stays the whole week; that's by her choice."
Shrewsbury said she didn't spend more than "two days a week" in Richmond and missed some weeks when occupied with other tasks.
She said the expenses she submitted to the association for reimbursement this year were primarily for gas and lodging costs. They were less than $2,000, according to the association.
By comparison, McDonald tallied more than $9,800 in expenses reimbursed by the association for the same period, including more than $9,000 in reimbursements to Norfolk.
The association has two professional lobbyists. Madeline Abbitt of Richmond is paid $36,500 and was reimbursed for $1,606 in expenses this year. Charles Crowson Jr., former commissioner of revenue in Newport News, was paid $4,000.
McDonald said when Crowson was co-chairman of the legislative committee in 2009, Newport News paid for more than $10,000 in expenses for his time in Richmond.
Crowson said he was there, however, "at the request of my city, number one," and "it just so happened I was co-chair of the legislative committee."
However, his primary role was to lobby for the city on tax issues, he said.
McDonald said her lobbying saved every city and county in Virginia thousands of dollars in revenue.
"Nobody should question why I'm up there," she said. "I have to be up there to protect my staff and the citizens of Norfolk.
"If that money we got put back in the budget doesn't come from the state, that's more money localities have to pick up."
Pilot writers Marjon Rostami, Deirdre Fernandes and Dave Forster and news research Jakon Hays contributed to this report.
Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com
Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com
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The City of Norfolk should be ashamed...
I am appalled by this Bryan Pennington character and his blatant disregard for elected officials like Sharon McDonald. His direct quotes in this article show me (and the rest of Hampton Roads) that he is small minded and weak--it's a shame that he has to "mark his territory" by proclaiming over and over again that Ms. McDonald has no right to be in Richmond--especially when he fails to return her phone calls and emails.
Ms. McDonald is elected by the citizens of Norfolk--like it or not, Mr. Pennington has a duty to respect that. If I were Mayor Fraim or City Manager Williams, I would call for his resignation--he is an embarrassment to our city and I am ashamed that he represents me and my tax dollars.
My vote is to send Ms. McDonald back up there...at least she would know when to keep her mouth shut.
So that's what an audit is called
"vicious rumor-mongering by political opponents"
who else had there hand in the cookie jar using the other city credit cards??
Term Limits
We should only elect those who advocate to end their jobs. Only real leaders would do what is right. Instead we elect those who scheme us into pfiefdoms, budgets and conferences. Leaders are already independently wealthy and don't need the city pay check or bow down to career bureacrats to save their jobs. they say what needs to be said and get done what is needed. Once we have term limits in both elected positions and city jobs, we will see a new breed of person who joins to make a difference, not a career out of bleeding the system dry. Many city workers just lay low till retirement and even some are blatant about not caring. This is our money and the city works for us, not us for them. We need to do better by being more vocal when we vote, they need to stop using city money to take trips to israel, poland and korea just to meet great guys who are really nice and instead have their necks on the line to bring back job announcments. Why do we just tolerate sloth, pettiness and sub-par workers.
Cnt'd
No city job needs to be more than 5 years in duration. Almost all city jobs are just steady state processes like intake of forms, processing those forms and giving out a result, managing service like garbage colleciton or issuing permits. These positions do not require a person with specialized education and yet we compensate them like they are some nobel prize winner with benefits and job security when the general public, many of whom have real skills are sitting on pins and needles in the private sector. Making all city hall jobs limited and low pay, but offering a chance for young grads to make a difference will get fresh college grads who are looking to improve services while lowring costs so they have resume bullets at the end of 5 years that will be acceptable by the private sector. We have done a disservice making government jobs secure & lazy. these people if put in the corporate jungle would be the equivalent of a 3-legged obese zebra running from hyenas and lions. Government used to do all the big cool stuff, now we let it waste our money and be the guardians of pettiness. We need to think fast, half the stimulus is already gone.
Obviously...
You have never worked in the public sector. I have worked in professional capacities in both private and public and the public aector is much more demanding and requiring of greater skills. Your blanket condemnation of all city workers and believing they should be limited to 5 years is plain non-sensical. And I can tell you that a great many of these people you wrongfully demonize continually work to improve processes, lower costs, increase effectiveness, etc. If you took a few minutes to even investigate what is being done and the results being achieved by a great many localities you would know your statements are off the mark-way off. Don't rely on news reporters to tell the good stories as they are jaded opinionated glory seekers wanting the "big scoop" to launch their career. The positive activities are never reported as they do not make for good sales. There are a few bad ones as with any organization, but the actions of those few are not representative of the whole.
Delusion
Working at Burger King doesn't count.
BK is hard work
My very job when I was 16 was at BK and it was a motivator to goto college, study engineering and stay out of trouble. BK is much harder than any city job. This guy probably worked for this dad's landscaping company as a receptionist while working for the public works department. Thats the only way possible that private sector work could be easier than public sector.
Uh...
You do not know me at all and make broad unintelligent and ignorant assumptions. You obviously know NOTHING about all the various types of work done in the public sector. You my friend are not worth the effort to even try to reason with. There is no room for knowledge when willful ignorance exists. For the record I am not in management or leadership but I am in a profession that requires higher education and a high degree of skills and knowledge. A profession that very few from the private sector accept positions for when they see how low it pays compared to the private sector. And of those who do accept a position they quickly find themselves having much more to be responsible and accountable for than what they bargained for. But I digress, you know it all about public service so what I experienced must be my imagination. And from now on if you want to insult me or take pot shots like you did than do it to me directly. Be a man. :)
Stay on topic
I don't think anybody takes issue with many who do the core work. But don't forget, private sector jobs rarely include pension and retired medical. So make sure you know the real comparisons. And you might work on that anger thing. If you blow up at someone at a private sector job, sayonara.
No Anger Here..
Just do not like the assumptions you and others make. I get rather tired of people making broad assumptions and yes, I am reading the comments and there are not distinctions being made here b/t core and others. You just brought that into the discussion. And for the retirement and medical issues, those were things that I had in the private sector when I worked for a large corporation. But to make comparisons one needs to look at the whole package: salary and benefits, and those working for localities make less than their counterparts in the state and the Fed and the private sector. This is something many want to ignore. Yea they want locality workers to have no better benefits (if not less than) the private sector yet at the same time these people do not want to recognize salary issues. Then one has to add skill and educational requirements to positions to then get an even better picture. When all that is factored in locality workers (particularly in the professional occupations) are grossly underpaid-even considering benefits.