From the back row of the House, Del. Adam Vance demanded to know why his district wasn’t receiving money to fix its water issues in the new state budget.
From the front row, flanked by a trio of aides, Finance Chair Vernon Criss told him that the $100,000 set aside for Wyoming County — long beleaguered by dirty water — was lost in negotiations with the Senate.
“Any reason why?” Vance asked.
“It was just part of the work with the Senate,” Criss, a Wood County Republican, said.
“That’s what I figured,” Vance said, slamming his microphone into the holder on his desk, next to his American and Gadsden flags.
In the recently passed budget, lawmakers cut small but impactful projects and programs that serve some of the state’s most vulnerable citizens.
Instead, they squirreled away tens of millions of dollars to pay for future tax cuts and a ballooning program that funds private schools and homeschooling.
Last year on the House floor, Vance described black water bubbling up in a constituent’s yard and begged for help from the state.
After his county was passed over in this year’s budget, the next day he hobbled the legislative process by demanding bills be read aloud.
The two-term delegate said he’s fed up with how things play out in the Capitol and probably won’t run again.
“It seems that since I’ve been down here, and each year gets worse, the greater good of the common West Virginia citizen gets left behind,” Vance said.
The Wyoming County water infrastructure funding only accounted for 0.0019% of the general revenue budget. But lawmakers were able to shovel $33 million into the state’s Personal Income Tax Reserve Fund.
The fund serves to subsidize state finances if automatic cuts to the state income tax go too deep. It will now have nearly $500 million in it.
When the budget cleared the state Senate, Sen. Ben Queen, a Republican from Harrison County, praised it for safeguarding important services like Medicaid, while also putting money away into the reserve fund.
“This budget is responsible,” he said. “It’s strategic, and it reflects a clear belief in the future of West Virginia.”
On Thursday, Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed the budget and cut funding for things including a Berkeley County library, the WVU law school and legal advocates for foster kids.
“Most state agencies are sharing in some of the sacrifices of lower spending,” Morrisey wrote, explaining one cut.
When it comes to caring for the future of West Virginia, its children, nothing happened this session. Lawmakers in the male-dominated body didn’t advance any bills that would help child care providers stay open for working parents.
Mariah Burnley, owner of Ohio Valley Child Learning Center in Wheeling, said that’s nothing new.
“No matter how many meetings we set up and how many this and this we do, it’s never on the agenda, or it’s never taken seriously,” Burnley said.
She’s been in business for five years. Due to rising costs, and not getting enough reimbursement from childcare subsidies, her center is behind on the rent. At the start of this year, she took a second job just to keep the doors open.
In this budget, only $3.16 million was put towards childcare, a fifth of what it was a decade ago when adjusted for inflation.
On the House floor, Del. Kayla Young, a Democrat from Kanawha, questioned why the Republican-controlled Legislature was stashing away money in the income tax reserve fund when there are other needs.
“We can’t fund child care the same amount that we did 10 years ago. I don’t get it,” Young said.
In the same budget, lawmakers have put millions toward the Hope Scholarship program, which doles out money to families that remove their children from public school for education at home or at private schools.
Lawmakers, through a combination of different pots of money, came up with $100 million to keep Hope going. State officials estimate the program’s cost could triple next year when thousands more students become eligible.
The House Majority Leader Pat McGeehan, a Republican from Hancock County, said funding the program is a must.
“It’s not about not being fiscally conservative,” he said during a debate on the House floor. “It’s about our obligations of the state, and prioritizing those obligations in a fiscally conservative manner.”
The funding was overwhelmingly approved by the House. Before the vote, a handful of Republicans said the program should be limited so there’s enough money for things like roads and emergency services.
“Do it responsibly, so that it doesn’t push the budget to the point we’re having to cut other things that are vital and very important to 100% of the population, not just a small percentage,” said Del. Dana Ferrell, a Republican from Kanawha County.
But the present budget already shows those cuts.
Since 2019, the state’s Jobs and Hope program has helped recovering addicts and formerly incarcerated people to get back in the workforce.
Since its inception, 8,700 people have found employment. Another 1,600 got off food stamps. Five hundred people have fully graduated the program and are now working in careers.
For each $1 spent in the program, $4 goes back into the West Virginia economy from people back on their feet and supporting themselves, according to the program’s director Deb Harris.
During a March committee meeting, Sen. Laura Chapman, a Republican from Ohio County, asked Harris how the program would be able to handle a proposed 25% cut to its budget.
There would be less money to help people get job certificates or training to become a heavy equipment operator, Harris said.
“We would continue our operations, our staff and things like that, but direct support for our participants and employers would be affected,” she said.
In the final budget, lawmakers cut the program by that much and a bit more.