The Senate proposal shows a 1% increase from last year’s budget, but is 6% lower than Gov. Jim Justice requested
BY: CAITY COYNE
In one of its final acts before the end of Crossover Day, the West Virginia Senate on Wednesday suspended constitutional rules and unanimously approved its proposed budget for fiscal year 2025.
The proposal for the state’s general revenue fund, which only takes into account fiscal impacts from legislation passed by the Senate and is subject to change or be amended at any time to reflect new laws adopted, comes in at around $4.86 billion. That’s about 1% higher than this year’s budget, but 6% lower than the general revenue budget requested by Gov. Jim Justice earlier this year.
Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, said Wednesday that the Senate has “passed no legislation this session that has any increased fiscal impact on general revenue collections.”
Keeping the budget relatively flat, as well, are a number of budget lines that will see no change in their values compared to 2024 under the Senate’s proposal. Those are as follows:
Department of Administrative Services ($88.9 million)
Department of Economic Development ($12.7 million)
School Building Authority ($24 million)
Department of Arts, Culture & History ($10.8 million)
Department of Environmental Protection ($7.6 million)
Office of the Adjutant General ($18.4 million)
Department of Transportation ($6.9 million)
The biggest change in this year’s proposed budget compared to previous years is for the state health department. Following the passage of legislation in 2022 that split the state’s largest department into three separate entities, a number of individual budget lines have been added to increase transparency and oversight for the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services and the Department of Health Facilities.
Nine of the state’s hospitals now have their own budget lines, totalling nearly $215 million. The only facility to see a decrease in their budget is Welch Community Hospital, which will see about $171,000 fewer in the coming year than last year.
For the Department of Health, budget lines increased from just two last year to 23 this year, and the Department of Human Resources saw an increase from one to 15.
Chris Dewitte, the legislative analyst who presented the proposed budget to lawmakers in Senate Finance before Wednesday’s evening floor session, said the increase in budget items is a reflection of efforts to make spending and oversight for the departments more transparent.
Another change this year is the end of one-time funds from the COVID-19 pandemic, which, according to the proposed budget, will mean a $682 million decrease in federal revenue.
There are about $519 million in proposed general revenue surplus items in the Senate’s budget, including $3 million for crisis pregnancy centers, $50 million for a new agricultural lab and $350 million for economic development projects, among many others. Those items can only be funded once the state allocates a certain amount of its budget to the Rainy Day Fund and they must be funded in full, in the order they appear in the budget.
Not included in the proposed budget was an item for the state’s fairs and festivals or for the preservation fund. Those line items, Tarr said, will be included in the enacted version of the budget that will pass later in the legislative session.
A number of legislative priorities listed by Justice during his 2024 State of the State are also not yet included in this budget, and it’s unclear if they will be due to bills that would codify them stalling in the Legislature. Those include the repeal of the state’s Social Security tax, the implementation of a child care tax credit and several potential pay raises for state employees.
The House has its own proposed budget — House Bill 4025 — which has yet to be considered by lawmakers and may look much different than the Senate’s proposal due to the fiscal impact of some bills passed by the body. Lawmakers have until the end of day 60 to agree on a budget, but the session can be extended to pass a budget or appropriations as necessary.
Senate suspends rules, passes proposed budget; House yet to consider its version
ByWest Virginia Watch
Feb 29, 2024