Fifty-seven days into the West Virginia Legislature’s 60-day session, lawmakers have done little to pull some of the state’s public schools from the brink of financial collapse.
Early in this session, Hancock County’s school system announced its ability to make payroll was at risk, and joined six other county school systems taken over by the state Department of Education.
West Virginia Board of Education President Paul Hardesty warned lawmakers that more school districts will be facing insolvency in the years to come. Meanwhile, other county systems are either laying off teachers or contemplating it.
More than 200,000 of West Virginia’s children attend public schools, but lawmakers have chosen to keep funding relatively flat, at $2.01 billion for schools, about $8 million less than last year.
Instead, they’ve fully funded the Hope Scholarship with no guardrails for 14,000 students and counting who currently receive public money for private education.
Prior to the session, the House of Delegates spent $114,000 on a study by the RAND Corporation into the state’s public education funding. Analysts with the company recommended the state increase funding for students living in poverty and those in special education.
Lawmakers moved no bills to address funding changes for students living in poverty this session.
Former House Education chair Del. Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, introduced a bill that would raise per-pupil spending from the current $5,700 to $6,500. It also spent more money on education for students with severe disabilities. Under the bill, the new formula would start in the 2027-2028 school year.
But when the bill came to the finance committee, lawmakers slashed the per-pupil amount to $6,100. Del. Vernon Criss, the chair of House Finance, said he had concerns the original proposal would add too much money to the budget.
Ellington, who also sits on the finance committee, agreed with the assessment.
“If we had the money, I’d love to do it,” Ellington said.
Ellington’s bill is now in the Senate, where the Education Committee passed it earlier this week.
The bill is now pending in the Senate Finance Committee.
Dale Lee, co-president of Education West Virginia, said getting additional funding to special education is one of the most important things the legislature can do. But he’d like to see the funding in the upcoming school year.
“They can find the money for it,” he said.
In January, Education Chair Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, attended the annual “Legislative Look Ahead” where politicians pitch to the press their visions for the upcoming session. The senator — who is also a public school teacher — said she wanted to address the state’s school aid formula.
Grady said the same thing last year, and nothing got done. With the RAND report released and promises from lawmakers they would address the funding formula, this year seemed different.
Grady ran bills through her committee that would’ve increased funding for special education, rural schools and increased the number of teachers per student.
But the Senate Finance Committee did not put any of these bills on their agendas.
“It’s always money,” she said. “I think there’s also a lot of different philosophies on how we should tackle this. We always say this is a major issue, and this should be a priority, but we don’t have anything that’s really structured that gets us from here to finding a solution.”