Browsing by Author "Lacy, Donald P."

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    The Blue Ridge region of Virginia : a profile, 1992
    Gibson, Pamela D.; Miller, Mark D. (Mark Douglas), 1962-; Lacy, Donald P. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 1992)
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    The Blue Ridge Region of Virginia : a statistical profile
    Lacy, Donald P.; Gibson, Pamela D.; Miller, Mark D. (Mark Douglas), 1962-; Lacy, Dean P.; Law, Martin (Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, 1989)
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    An Extension guide to CRD programs
    Lacy, Donald P.; Franklin, H. Bland; Chandler, R. Michael; McAlister, J. Douglas (Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, 1985-01)
    A guide to Community Resource Development programs available in Virginia.
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    Functional decentralization in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
    Furr, Stephen Ray (Virginia Tech, 1974-06-05)
    The aim of this study was to apply the hypothesis of functional decentralization to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for the years 1968-1970. It was expected that there would exist a number of smaller specialized sub-courts handling particular issue areas. While a number of statistically significant individual patterns were found, and three specialized sub-courts were identified, these findings cannot be interpreted as substantively significant. The anticipated pattern was that a large percentage of the issue areas would emerge as specialized. The specialized sub-court found in the Libel issue area is negated by the fact that the issue area had only seven cases. In terms of the overall pattern of behavior of the court the two specialized sub-courts remaining cannot be interpreted as having any substantive significance. That the anticipated patterns of behavior were not found may have two explanations. The first is that the seating patterns discerned occurred solely through chance. Thus, for the period 1968-1970, assignment of judges to appellate panels in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was done on a completely random basis. The second possible explanation is that there exists a fault in the research design which led to inability to reject the null hypothesis. There are several areas of potential error. The first lies in the typing of cases. Inevitably, unless the researcher is skilled in the principles of law and has sufficient time to study every case before typing, some forcing of cases into inappropriate case types will occur. Future researchers employing this technique will have to decide for themselves how much forcing is acceptable. In this research, approximately five per cent of the cases were forced. When spread over twenty-four primary case types, this five per cent may not have had any significant effect, but the potential for error cannot be discounted nor is it possible to assume that the forced cases were distributed evenly through the range of case types.
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    Interlocal cooperation in public service delivery: the case of Virginia
    Kalu, Mma Arua (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1983)
    Local governments during the past few years have been increasingly hard-pressed to make ends meet. Fiscally conservative times are now a political reality with which all of government must learn to cope. Many local officials have responded to this problem by introducing some new and innovative management techniques. But despite its potential economic and political advantages, interlocal cooperation has not received adequate attention as a cutback management technique. This study is therefore designed to increase our understanding of interlocal cooperation by: (1) updating the information currently in existence on interlocal cooperation in the state of Virginia; (2) analyzing, evaluating and describing the administrative processes and structures of illustrative examples of interlocal cooperation in the state; and (3) assessing the relationship between interlocal cooperation and various political, social, economic and demographic characteristics of the state’s political subdivisions. The methodology used in this study includes: (1) state-wide mail survey, (2) data analysis, (3) examination of illustrative examples of interlocal cooperation, and (4) literature review. Major research findings were: 1. There appears to be a relationship between population size, population growth, education, median household incomes, per capita income and per capita market values of real estate and interlocal cooperation in the State of Virginia, but the relationship is very weak indeed. 2. There is no appreciable differentiation by local governmental units in Virginia with regard to interlocal cooperation. 3. There is no appreciable difference between metropolitan and non-metropolitan jurisdictions in Virginia with regard to interlocal cooperation. 4. Virginia cities tend to use written agreement and contract more often than do either counties or towns. Counties are more apt to use contributions of cash and/or other resources than are either cities or towns. Towns, more often than cities or counties use unwritten/informal agreement. 5. Metropolitan jurisdictions used written agreement and contract more often than any other form of interlocal agreement. Non-metropolitan localities were found to use unwritten/informal agreement most often. 6. Virginia cities tend to cooperate more in the functional area of health and welfare, while towns form more agreements in the areas of administration and public safety. 7. There is more interlocal cooperation between counties and towns than between any other combinations of governmental units in the state. 8. Virginia counties and towns participate more often in interlocal agreement than do cities. 9. An overwhelming majority of local officials in the state considered economies of scale to be the major driving force behind their communities’ interlocal agreement. 10. Surprisingly, fear of annexation was not considered by Virginia local officials as the major reason for their communities’ reluctance to enter into interlocal cooperation. 11. In the state of Virginia, joint operation occurs more frequently in those public services requiring large capital outlays.
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    Local government fiscal and economic trends : a decade of change
    Lacy, Donald P.; Miller, Mark D. (Mark Douglas), 1962- (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 1992)
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    Local government revenues and expenditures in the Cumberland Plateau, Planning District 1971-1980 : a trend analysis
    McNamara, Kevin T.; Deaton, Brady J.; Chandler, Robert Michael, 1948-; Lacy, Donald P. (Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, 1984-10)
    Discusses the local revenues and expenditures for the Virginia counties in the Cumberland Plateau Planning District: Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell, and Tazewell.
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    Rural public administration: the tasks of leadership
    Miller, Mark D. (Virginia Tech, 1995)
    This study examines both the urban and rural contexts to determine how context influences the attitudes and perceptions of local officials concerning their participation in the governance of their communities. James Svara’s dichotomy/duality model is used to assess and compare the attitudes and perceptions of a total of ninety-three elected and administrative officials from urban and rural localities located within Virginia. The research indicates that urban elected officials Share attitudes and perceptions that lead to patterns of activity similar to those described in Svara’s dichotomy/duality model. However, rural elected officials share a set of attitudes and beliefs that is markedly different from their urban counterparts. Rural elected officials indicate higher levels of activity in administration and management than did their urban counterparts. Urban and rural administrative officials are characterized by similar perceptions that lead to relatively high levels of activity. The differences in attitudes and perceptions attributable to context in combination with other factors demonstrate the need for both descriptive and normative guides that are sensitive to context. This study proposes a new normative guide for rural officials. This new source of normative guidance promotes the concept and principles of "democratic leadership." This new normative guide directs the rural official to participate in the governance process in such a way as to encourage citizen participation and followership. By encouraging active participation of all interested groups, this new normative guide establishes a means for renewing the publics’ trust in government through its increased involvement in the creation of a truly "public" policy.
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    The State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972
    Parker, Stephen Donald (Virginia Tech, 1974-06-05)
    Today, increases in expenditures are creating tremendous strains on the financial resources of state and local governments. As these demands for services increase, the state and local governments continuously find their financial resources incapable of bending to meet these needs. Currently state and local governments together combined spend twice as much as the federal government to provide public services to the citizens. Education, roads, welfare, public health, hospitals, police, sanitation are all state and local responsibilities with the cost of providing these services falling primarily upon state and local sources of revenue. Consequently, state and local taxes have been raised almost to the saturation point and the bases of old taxes have had to be enlarged.