WASHINGTON This has been the summer of discontent for the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) and its massively troubled $2 billion, 10-year information technology outsourcing deal with Northrop Grumman. As The Times-Dispatch has detailed in numerous articles over the past month, Virginia state government is receiving questionable benefits and incurring disturbingly high costs for a deal that was designed to transform its technology infrastructure.

The start of the work week could begin at home for many Virginians. Today is Telework Day, and Virginia businesses are being encouraged to let their employees work at home. Karen Jackson, the state’s deputy secretary of technology, said there are environmental as well as psychological benefits to working at home. Workers save on gas, the environment is spared auto emissions from fewer commuters and drivers avoid the frustration of sitting in traffic.

The roughly $13 million bill that state computer czar Lemuel Stewart disputed before being fired from that position has been paid. The payment to Northrop Grumman was authorized by the Virginia Information Technologies Agency’s acting chief information officer on June 22—and not in accordance with internal financial controls, according to Senate Finance Committe staff.

The Virginia Retirement System’s assets dropped by $12 billion, or 20 percent, in the first half of this year, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission was told today. A. Marshall Acuff Jr., chairman of the system’s board of trustees, described the investment environment as “the most challenging” he has encountered in 43 years in the investment business.

The state’s computer super-agency is running about six months behind schedule putting in place a $2.3 billion contract with Northrop Grumman for information technology servvices.

“When will our politicians realize their jobs are finished?“ humorist P.J. O’Rourke once asked. “When can we say of our political system, ‘stick a fork in it; it’s done’?“ Alas, the answer is: never—not so long as there are elections. It is not enough merely for candidates to proclaim that they will continue to maintain the sound policies and good governance of their predecessors. They must continually promise more, more, and yet still more—no matter how absurd the result.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine today is expected to give legislators a revised revenue forecast that will reflect the state’s plunging tax proceeds.

The Commonwealth Transportation Board meets in Richmond today to take up changes to its plans amid difficult economic times.

J.Braxton Powell hadn’t been working for the state long when his first boss showed what it takes to get ahead in state government. Virginia had elected a Republican governor, Linwood Holton.

Virginia is preparing to build a $16 million parking deck on land it just bought in downtown Richmond. Pending approval by the General Assembly, the state plans to issue bonds to build the 1,000-space deck at Seventh and East Franklin streets on a surface parking lot it bought this week for $4 million from a Fredericksburg company. The deck will serve state employees at 600 E. Main St., a 24-story office building purchased by the state last year, but it won’t help the Richmond CenterStage performing-arts center, as once envisioned.

One seat is unresolved because the Republican candidate in a special election Tuesday for a House seat in Alexandria is seeking a recount.

With all the budget cuts and layoffs to Virginia’s state government, there hasn’t been much Christmas cheer to go around. So Gov. Timothy M. Kaine played Santa Claus: He gave the state’s 100,000 employees the equivalent of an extra day off. The time—eight hours—is split into a four-hour increment on Christmas Eve and another on New Year’s Eve, according to the Dec. 18 memo sent to state workers.