Latest news with #Grooms
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Valley Health steps up commitment to mental health service with construction of new $20M facility in Winchester
WINCHESTER, Va. () — Valley Health is looking to step up its commitment to helping those with mental health disorders in the community. Winchester-based Valley Health said that a quarter-million Americans suffer from mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety. But fewer than a quarter of people who need treatment will seek it. Frederick County technology center addresses skilled trades need Jenny Grooms is leading a fundraising drive for a mental health pavilion at Valley Medical Center in Winchester. 'Everyone has a story about a mental health challenge. Everyone. Themselves or they know someone that has been affected by a mental health or substance use disorder,' Grooms said. Tonya Smith is the chief operating officer of Valley Health System with six hospitals in Virginia and West Virginia, serving a half-million residents in 18 counties. The Winchester medical system is Valley Health's flagship operation. 'We do a community needs assessment, and every year the assessment shows mental health comes up as a gap,' Smith explains. A trip to the emergency room or a consultation with a physician is just the beginning of a process for those experiencing a mental health disorder, Smith said. 'More is needed,' Smith said. 'We need somewhere to send patients when they first come in with a crisis. That's how we started designing our mental health, behavioral health pavilion.' Martinsburg mayor delivers State of the City Address Valley Health hopes its approach can be a model for other regions across the country. 'Mental health care has been a longstanding need for many communities, especially here in the Shenandoah Valley,' Grooms said. The pavilion is set to open late in the summer of 2026. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Epoch Times
22-04-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
South Carolina Senate Votes to Oust State Treasurer Over $1.8 Billion Error
Members of the South Carolina Senate voted on April 21 to remove the state's embattled treasurer for 'willful neglect' of his duties, sending the matter to the state House for consideration. The 33–8 vote followed an hours-long hearing of the full Senate, during which state Sens. Larry Grooms and Stephen Goldfinch, both Republicans, pushed for state Treasurer Curtis Loftis's removal over a $1.8 billion accounting error. 'The big secret of Treasurer Loftis, the one that he's kept hidden away, is that there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in errors in the Treasury books today, and he doesn't know how to fix them,' Grooms said in opening the hearing. A state Senate Finance subcommittee An outside forensic Loftis, now in his fourth term, was first elected treasurer in 2010 and has held the office since. Related Stories 4/11/2025 4/6/2025 While two other public officials have resigned in connection with the state's accounting issues, Loftis, Grooms said, 'remains defiant and refuses to take responsibility for his failures.' Loftis, defending his record, likened himself to President Donald Trump, who vociferously denounced various investigations related to his affairs. 'I'm inspired by President Trump, and I, too, will not back down,' Loftis said. During prior Senate testimony, the treasurer indicated that the inexplicable funds not only existed but had been invested and were generating returns. After the audit, however, he claimed the report 'validated what we've known all along,' a statement that Goldfinch derided as 'a lie.' The senator accused Loftis of attempting to cover up a serious error that he knew would damage his reputation. Loftis's attorneys downplayed the discrepancy as 'an on-paper accounting error' and 'an honest mistake.' 'AlixPartners reviewed more than 1 million documents and did not find a single piece of evidence suggesting wrongdoing by the treasurer,' noted Shawn Eubanks, an attorney in the treasurer's office, referencing the firm that conducted the forensic audit. Eubanks further held that the audit report provided 'good news for the state' in that it found no missing or stolen funds. 'The treasurer's books reconcile to the bank,' he said. Loftis's lawyers also criticized the Legislature's efforts to oust him as a violation of both his due process rights and the will of the voters who elected him. 'Treasurer Loftis is the most popular statewide official in the history of South Carolina. This is a man who received 80 percent of the vote in the last election, a man who received overwhelming bipartisan support,' attorney Debbie Barbier said. Decrying the proceedings as 'drastic' and unprecedented, Barbier said lawmakers had stripped Loftis of his right to call and confront witnesses by using the state's removal on address procedure rather than impeachment. 'They're asking you to make this decision not based on a trial, not with witnesses, not with exhibits and documents and expert testimony and authentication of documents, not with rules of evidence, but based upon a one-and-a-half-hour presentation with video clips,' she said. 'There is not one shred of proof and absolutely no evidence to support the removal of Treasurer Loftis.' The more common impeachment process gives lawmakers the power to impeach and convict a statewide officer for 'serious crimes or serious misconduct in office.' The South Carolina Constitution also provides an avenue to removal for 'willful neglect of duty' or another 'reasonable cause' deemed insufficient for impeachment. That process requires the governor to remove an officer 'on the address of two-thirds of each house of the General Assembly' after a hearing. If Loftis is removed, he would become the first state official in South Carolina's 235-year history to be ousted under the provision. It will now be up to the state House, also under GOP control, to decide whether to hold a hearing on the matter.
Washington Post
13-04-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Buyers and their agents adapt to new commision model
When Ella Fitzgerald and her husband bought a home in the Alexandria, Virginia, area in January, they considered themselves to be very particular buyers. 'We targeted 30 homes that we wanted to look at in a specific area, and our real estate agent, Elizabeth Lucchesi, wrote letters to all the owners to see if they would sell,' Fitzgerald said. 'That's a lot of work before an offer even gets made, so when Elizabeth explained the buyer's agent paperwork and talked about her fee, we never questioned that we would pay it if it wasn't negotiated in the offer.' Fitzgerald, a repeat home buyer, believes it's logical for a buyer to pay a fee to their own agent. 'We didn't negotiate with her on the fee, which was a percentage of the sales price, because we knew it was average in this area,' Fitzgerald said. 'If it was double the normal fee we would have negotiated, but 3 percent seemed reasonable.' In the end, the sellers paid Lucchesi's fee as part of their closing costs, but Fitzgerald said they were prepared to pay her themselves. These kinds of conversations between buyers and their agents were less common before August 2024, when new rules were instituted by the National Association of Realtors for their members. The changes were part of the aftermath of a string of lawsuits against the association and several real estate brokerages that accused them of forcing sellers to pay commissions to agents who represented their buyers. The new rules require buyers to sign an agreement with their agent that specifies the agent's fee, such as a percentage of the sales price or a fee for services, a practice that was common in the D.C. region before last year. In addition, sellers can no longer advertise offers to pay a buyer's agent on the multiple listing service (MLS), but they can still negotiate to do so as part of the transaction. The initial expectation was that these new practices would bring about a dramatic change away from the tradition of home sellers paying a commission that was split between the two real estate agents at the closing. Real estate commissions have always been negotiable and typically totaled between 5 percent and 6 percent of the sales price. Instead of the predicted steep decline in agent commissions, the fees have remained relatively steady. A recent study by Redfin found that the average buyer's agent commission was 2.37 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024, essentially unchanged compared with the third quarter of 2024 and down slightly from 2.45 percent one year ago before the changes. Typical Transaction Practices Still in Place Before the new rules went into effect, agent commissions were essentially split between two brokerages, said Trey Grooms, a real estate agent with eXp Realty in Alexandria. 'The seller would pay the commission, and the fee would be divided between the two agents,' Grooms said. 'Now, the fee negotiation is between the seller and the buyer.' Most sellers offer to pay the buyer's agent fee, Grooms said. 'I had one seller who would only pay a smaller amount when I was representing a buyer,' Grooms said. 'In that case, I just took a smaller fee because I felt that was my obligation to my buyer.' Still, in nearly every transaction, the end result is the same: the fees for both agents are typically negotiated and paid from the seller's contributions to the closing costs. 'So far, no buyers have paid my fee directly, and my sellers have all paid their buyer's agent fees,' said Marin Hagen, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in the District. 'Partly it's just that this has been the norm for so long that everyone continues it. But also, as listing agents we educate our sellers why it behooves them to pay.' Hagen said it's prudent for sellers to pay a buyer's agent to make sure they show their property. 'Sellers want certainty that they will get to the closing and a buyer's agent will help make sure that happens,' Hagen said. 'It's especially important if you're selling to first-time buyers because they often can't afford to pay their agent's commission on top of all the other costs to buy.' In one transaction in which Lucchesi, a real estate agent with Long & Foster Realtors in Alexandria, represented the buyers, the sellers said they would pay her commission but asked for it to be reduced. 'I told them that they received a large earnest money deposit from my buyers, an 18-day closing and everything else they wanted because I encouraged my buyers to make a strong competitive offer,' Lucchesi said. 'They agreed and paid my full commission because they recognized the value of having a good buyer's agent to get the transaction to closing.' Transparency for Buyers Most buyers are already informed about the new rules around real estate commissions, said Kris Paolini, a real estate agent with Redfin in Bethesda, Maryland. 'We go over the main points at our first meeting, which is that the seller can't advertise any buyer's agent fee on the MLS,' Paolini said. 'Our fee is in the written agreement that buyers sign, which they can negotiate if they want. We also tell them that our fee can't change even if the sellers offer something different.' In practice that means that if the sellers don't negotiate to pay the buyer's agent fee in full, the buyers are responsible for the full fee or at least the part the sellers won't pay. 'If the sellers offer a bigger fee, we refund the difference to our buyers,' Paolini said. 'We're not allowed to accept a fee for more than what's in our written buyer agent agreement.' Paolini said that buyer's agent fees vary by market, but in the D.C. region 2.5 percent is typical. Redfin offers a 'sign and save' buyer's agent agreement after an agent meets with a buyer and tours a home that typically drops the fee to 2.25 percent. Grooms brings a sample contract with him when he meets with buyers to demonstrate what the document looks like when an offer is made. 'Buyers always have closing costs such as lender and attorney fees, taxes and escrow start-ups,' Grooms said. 'Now they can see their agent's fee as part of the closing costs, too. Then they can ask the sellers for a contribution to the closing costs and use that to cover their agent's fee.' Lucchesi asks a lender to prepare several scenarios for her buyers to show them how much cash they need for a transaction depending on how the negotiations with the sellers are finalized, including around agent fees. That way they are prepared if they need to pay her fee. Buyer Agent Fee Negotiations While agent fees have always been negotiable, when sellers paid the buyer's agent there was little incentive for buyers to ask about their agent's commission. Yet even now, most agents say that buyers typically don't ask them to reduce their fee. They often assume their agent will negotiate on their behalf to have the seller pay the fee. The instances of a buyer paying an agent directly so far are rare, local agents say. 'In one case, a buyer wanted to be really competitive after having lost out on numerous offers, so they paid me directly and didn't ask for the sellers to contribute at all,' Grooms said. One of Lucchesi's buyers paid one-third of her commission while the sellers paid the rest, but that is extremely rare. 'In one transaction, I had a 2.5 percent fee agreement with my buyer, but the seller would only pay 2 percent,' Paolini said. 'In that case, the listing agent decided to give up .5 percent of their own commission to make sure I got paid and that the transaction would go through without the buyer needing to come up with extra funds.' New Home Purchase Practices One thing that has changed is that most builders no longer pay buyer agents a full commission, Paolini said. 'Builders usually pay a flat fee now, so if we have a signed buyer agent agreement at a specific percentage, the buyers may need to make up the difference,' he said. 'I had one buyer pay me the difference because he said he valued my input and advice during the transaction and the builder wouldn't pay my full fee.' Tips for Buyers
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
South Carolina treasurer faces calls to resign after report released in $1.8 billion accounting scandal
SOUTH CAROLINA (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — There are growing calls for the resignation of South Carolina's state treasurer following a new report on an investigation into a $1.8 billion accounting blunder. 'It's just a terrible situation to be in. It shouldn't be that way,' State Republican Senator Larry Grooms of Berkeley County said. Grooms is one of the loudest voices calling for state treasurer Curtis Loftis to resign. This comes after a lengthy investigation into $1.8 billion found in a state account in March 2024. 'We stopped short of calling for the treasurer's resignation because we needed to hire a forensic accounting team to get to the bottom of it,' Grooms said. PREVIOUS | An audit found the money never existed; it was the result of errors during a transition to a new accounting system, even though Loftis claimed it was real last year. The Senate finance subcommittee report released on Monday finds that Loftis 'willfully neglected' his duties as treasurer. 'When you're the treasurer and you don't know whether $1.8 billion is real when you have hundreds of millions of dollars in error on the state treasury books and you hide it when confronted about it, you lie about it. There's a problem with that treasurer, that elected officer,' Grooms said. The 49-page report claims South Carolina's financial future is not secure with Loftis, and leaving him as treasurer would cause irreparable harm. 'The subcommittee that I chair with been investigating the $1.8 billion anomaly now for the past 13, 14 months. And so we've collected thousands and thousands of pages of testimony that countless interviews, hours and hours of a dozen or more committee hearings. And so the work of the subcommittee, the 49 page report, is meticulously footnoted with 605 pages of documentation to go along with it,' Grooms said. 'Our state's two elected officers that handled the money, the accountant and the banker, the two, they're supposed to be a check on each other, but they weren't. They actually had corruption going on within each other's houses,' Groom said. The previous comptroller general and state auditor resigned over recent financial errors, and lawmakers say Loftis should be next. However, the treasurer doesn't agree with that assessment, saying in a statement, 'South Carolina's financial threat isn't from mismanagement or missing money… The real danger comes from a relentless, politically motivated attack on my office.' Grooms says it's now up to lawmakers to take the next constitutional step. 'The state constitution has mechanisms for removal of a constitutional officer. One is outright impeachment, and that's really for high crimes and a misdemeanor. I think that's what it says in there. But willful neglect of duty is another reason. It's in the same article as impeachment, but it does forcibly remove a constitutional officer for willful neglect of duty. And that's why he's being charged with willful neglect of duty. And he'll have an opportunity to defend himself. But it requires a two-thirds vote of the house and a two-thirds vote of the senate to vacate the office of state treasurer,' Grooms said. Senator Grooms believes this scandal affects the trust people in South Carolina have in elected officials to keep their money safe, and it could have a big impact on the state's ability to borrow money — due to a lack of faith in its real finances. That means taxpayers would have to pay more for priority items like schools and roads. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SCDOT plans to release Momentum 2050 Plan to outline improvements on Thursday
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WSPA) – The General Assembly tasked the South Carolina Department of Transportation with making their Momentum 2050 Plan. The plan outlines goals and future improvements the South Carolina Department of Transportation wants to make. 'Yeah, it is a good way off 2050. But if we don't start funding and preparing and permitting now, we're never going to get there, ' said Sen. Larry Grooms, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee (R – Berkeley). SC death row inmate granted stay of execution The S.C. Department of Transportation said the state has changed drastically since the last plan was made. Secretary at SCDOT, Justin Powell said after the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been 360,000 new residents who have come to the Palmetto State. They are expecting a million more new residents within the next 20 years. 'The questions are not about the pothole anymore. It's the 'I can't get across town like I used to,' it's those questions,' Powell said. Grooms said they are committed to working with SCDOT on funding. 'We underfunded our roads for about 25 years. So, for 25 years in a row, our roads got worse, and now that we're getting too good, getting our handle, getting a handle on that, now we need to understand we have to do more to be able to expand the network,' said Grooms. 'Our roads have to be safe, and any unsafe bridges have to be repaired,' Grooms added. 'Now, we know others are aging out, so coming up with a schedule of which bridges get replaced and that's essential in having the revenue to do it.' Another key issue addressed was railroad repairs and crossings. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
