In every parade a little rain must fall...

Today's Times Dispatch has a lovely place with a positive spin...

Chesterfield rising on Training magazine’s list of employers

For the second year in a row, Chesterfield is the only local government on a list of the best training providers in the U.S.

Chesterfield was 52nd in 2007, 43rd in 2008 and 38th in 2009, and it reached the 12th spot for 2010, just behind software giant Sun Microsystems Inc. and insurance giant Aetna Inc.

The county has nearly 4,500 employees and a total training budget of $5.2 million.

By the Taxpayer's Calculator, could you believe we spend... wait for it... an average of $1155 per employee. Applying a normal distribution, some employees may receive none and some would receive well over $2,000 per year.

In lean times, time to cut back. Instead our leaders say...

"The emphasis that our organization puts on employee development and training is a major factor in enabling us to adjust positively to the dramatic reductions in revenue that we're experiencing,"

Huh?

I'll ask a rhetorical taxpayer question, how many small businesses would love to have $1100 or $2,000 back? And what would they do with it?