In May, Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced a West Virginia program that helps low-income families pay for kids’ clothing, childcare and basic needs faced a financial crisis. He said that TANF funding was short $43 million.
Family support centers also receive funding from TANF, short for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Adults can get food for their families and literacy courses while kids can get mentoring and tutoring.
But throughout the summer, center directors worried they’d lose their funding, and people would go without.
State officials also delayed the application period for the kids clothing voucher program in late July and closed it after just seven days.
After saying that some parents could be using the money on cigarettes and beer, the governor reversed course, announcing more kids would get vouchers last week.
And now, he’s saying that funding levels for all TANF-supported programs will not change through June 2027.
So what does TANF fund, and what is at risk?
Here’s what you need to know.
What is TANF?
TANF is intended to help low-income families keep kids in their own homes, to promote work, to discourage pregnancies by single mothers and to encourage two-parent families.
The money pays for programs like the clothing vouchers and the support centers.
Each year for two decades, West Virginia has received nearly $110 million in federal TANF funding. The state is also required to contribute at least $33 million of its own money.
One part of TANF is a financial assistance program known in West Virginia as WV Works. You have to be among the most impoverished in West Virginia to be eligible. Only about 8,000 people use the program, according to Angel Hightower, spokesperson for the Department of Human Services.
Most people living in poverty still bring in too much income to qualify for the program — just 16% do.
How does West Virginia spend the money?
In their most recent plan, state officials wrote they would use TANF to fund legal services, programs designed to strengthen relationships and families and assistance for children. These include child abuse prevention services, among other programs.
TANF money also goes to indirect help for WV Works families. State officials said funds would go to college professionals who help recipients apply for financial aid, employers who hire them, dental and vision care and donated vehicles.
Tina Persinger, director of the Calhoun County Family Resource Center, said those families receive benefits many don’t know about.
Yes, there’s cash assistance, but there are also requirements for work, volunteering and budgeting classes.
As a condition of receiving TANF funds, her center must provide services like parenting classes meant to keep kids out of foster care and healthy relationship classes to prevent divorces.
“It’s not a hand out,” she said. “The Family Support Center is designed to help families thrive. It’s more of a hand up.”
Why does the governor say there’s a TANF crisis?
Ann Moore, a spokesperson for Morrisey, said that shortly after the 2026 legislative session, the administration began a review of TANF expenditures and that they shared it with lawmakers to find a solution for the shortfall.
When Mountain State Spotlight requested the review, state health officials said there was no written audit to provide.
Moore said administration officials found past policy decisions led to too much TANF spending on childcare and the state’s PATH system, an online portal used to sign up for Medicaid and other social programs.
Moore said the Morrisey administration was not aware of the lack of funds during the legislative session because of the “fragmented” nature of TANF spending.
But House Finance Chair Vernon Criss, R-Wood, noted that when state lawmakers create a budget each year, the governor tells them how much they have to spend.
“He gives us the amount of revenues available, and then we build a budget,” he said. “In the last two years that he’s submitted budgets, he spent every dollar.”
Morrisey said in August he plans to work with lawmakers to fund TANF-supported programs in a more sustainable way.
The governor has also indicated state officials don’t plan to keep spending dwindling, unspent TANF reserves from previous years, which they’d previously been using.
What could the state do to keep funding TANF programs?
The state doesn’t have to pay for its share of the TANF program out of reserves from previous years.
Lawmakers could raise revenue with tax increases or roll back tax cuts. And the state currently has $125 million in surplus money.
Seth DiStefano, senior policy outreach director for the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, noted that lawmakers and state officials frequently make choices that affect how much money they have to spend.
Last legislative session, a 5% tax cut pushed by Morrisey, largely benefiting the wealthiest West Virginians, led to a loss of $125 million in state revenue.
And the governor backed lawmakers spending $275 million on the Hope Scholarship, and now even kids whose parents already paid for them to attend private school can get Hope Scholarship financial assistance this year.
Meanwhile, other states have also made some adjustments to their TANF programs to help more people. At least 16 make regular, if small, increases in payments to recipients, often tied to the federal poverty level.
To be a WV Works recipient, a family can’t own more than $2,000 in assets. Some states have eliminated their asset test.
DiStefano said that Morrisey’s actions, including promoting the tax cut, and his public comments about lower-income families who need help affording kids’ clothing, demonstrate where his priorities lie.
“And it’s not the overwhelming majority of working-class and working-poor families in West Virginia.”
