Garrisonville Supervisor Schieber Wants to Add Jobs, Expand Research and Development Centers

Ty Schieber, Republican incumbent for the Garrisonville district on the Stafford County Board of Supervisors, has served on the county’s board since January 2012. This is his first regular election. He was appointed by the Stafford County Board of Supervisors to the Garrisonville seat after Mark Dudenhefer (R-Stafford) was elected to the House of Delegates. Prior to being elected as a supervisor, he was a representative on the Stafford County School Board. His opponent in the November Virginia General Election is Democrat, Laura Sellers.

He says there are three main challenges that come along with the development and growth coming to Stafford County: schools, transportation and safety.

“The more people you have, the more focus you have on the roads, the more kids you have in school and all of that has to be done within the context with a safe and secure environment,” says Schieber. He says there are challenges that come along with those three primary areas have a lot to do with the growing development and the available resources in the county.

Education

When it comes to the school system, Schieber says it is important that the school board and board of supervisors make efficient decisions regarding teacher retention and salaries. 

“The salary baseline is always a challenge and in the last budget cycle, teachers did get a raise but we want to make that something that is more competitive, more predictable,” says Schieber. “The conversation that we are embarking on with schools is: ‘what are the ways we can work collectively to do that?’”

Schieber says the core function of public schools is instruction and urges the county to look for opportunities to reduce the cost of non-educational functions so that educational resources can be used in the classrooms.

“We need to continue to challenge ourselves to look at better ways of doing business to reduce the cost of noncore function,” he says. “Making sure our teacher salary baselines are competitive and we’re retaining educators is where the quality of education happens.”

Schieber says there needs to be good communication between the schools and the school board in order to accomplish the goals of Stafford County.

“I’ve been through four budget cycles now, two as a board member and two as a supervisor,” he says. “One of the most challenging aspects of that relationship is maintaining good communication and figuring out how to share information in a way where there’s a common understanding about the relative priorities and the decisions you have to make in terms of where the resources come from.”

Transportation

Schieber says that the county is making great progress in terms of the transportation bill that was passed by the General Assembly last legislative session, but says it will be a challenge to keep up with the new measures.

“When you look at the improvements that are planned or in progress across the district, I think we’re in a good position now that the resources are going be available,” he says. “I think that we’re going to make significant strides over the next two to three years in helping to fix the issues that we currently have.”

Among these projects, Schieber mentioned the Route 630 and I-95 interchange as well as the Garrisonville road widening.  He said that these are among other construction projects on the northern and southern boundary of Stafford that will help alleviate the area’s transportation issues.

Jobs

Job creation is an area Schieber says he is very proactive in. Within his career experience, he says he has been successful in adding 250 to 300 jobs to the Stafford area and the Board’s Economic Development 10-Point Plan, geared toward making Stafford County more business-friendly, has progressively met success in promoting job creation.   Additionally, Schieber says that the building developers have a large role in providing jobs to the economy.

Another area Schieber hopes to see is the expansion of research and development centers, such as the Stafford Technology and Resource Park at the Quantico Corporate Center.

I think from a long-term perspective, (research and development centers) have a lot of potential to help us develop our own innovation economy,” says Schieber. He says it is important to build opportunities in the economy that are aligned with the market’s growth areas.

 “The idea is to draw academic research and development institutions so that we can educate and train our workforce,” he says. “It’s legitimate to consider that education is economic development, so the better job that we can do in terms of linking together the full spectrum of education and training from kindergarten all the way into graduate degrees…the better we can shape our curriculum to make sure our citizens have the tool kit to go out there and succeed.”

Military

Schieber says he believes that Stafford plays a big role into how Virginia continuing to build on the success of being a military job center. He served for the U.S. Marine Corps from 1987 to 2001.

“When you look at the national defense capacity here in the commonwealth and in planning district 16, in which Stafford County is a part of, it’s remarkable,” he says. “Marine Corp Base Quantico in itself has approximately a $3.6 billion annual economic impact on the region. It’s both natural and necessary that we remain fully engaged enough to expand upon that.”