On Wednesday, the governor gave his annual State of the State address. From a policy point of view, Governor Tomblin made several pronouncements regarding education, child well-being, prison reform and substance abuse that deserve high praise. However, the governor also left me scratching my head regarding his proposal to deal with the state's budget gap…
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Today, nearly one in three young children (under age 6) in West Virginia lives in poverty. For a family of four that means living on a income of about $20,000 a year in 2012. Child poverty is a persistent and growing problem in West Virginia. That's why it's so important that State Senate Majority Leader…
(Continued from Part 6 - published 1/22/2013) Raising real property taxes or the sales tax aren't the only ways to offset the losses from eliminating the personal property tax in West Virginia. For example, last year's H.B. 4473 called for using the proceeds from the proposed future fund to reduce the personal property tax burden on businesses. Advocates for the…
As many people may know, West Virginia ranks very high in home ownership among the 50 states. In fact, according to the latest Assets & Opportunities Scorecard released by the Corporation for Economic Development, West Virginia had the 3rd highest rate of home ownership in the nation in 2011 at 72.3 percent. While home ownership…
Over the past few weeks, Ted and I have looked at education in West Virginia, both as a reaction to the governor's education audit, and the likelihood that education reform will be a major topic in the upcoming legislative session. First I broke down West Virginia's education spending, and found that with a few exceptions,…
Today's Charleston Gazette noted that the State Advisory Council of Students is planning to petition Governor Tomblin over proposed budget cuts to the state's higher education system. The students are concerned that any state cuts would result in higher tuition, making college less affordable for many students, and pushing more students into debt. However, even…
Yesterday, the Daily Mail published an editorial claiming that "family disintegration", or the lack of marriage among low-income West Virginians, is the central reason why the state ranks low in several social and economic welfare indicators, such as poverty, truancy, and crime to name a few. To make its case, The Daily Mail relied on…
Following up on my previous post on education spending, here are some more data on the issue. Last time, I broke down the state's per pupil spending into several categories, and made comparisons to spending nationwide. I found that for the most part, education spending in West Virginia is about on par with spending nationally,…
(Continued from part 5 - published 1/14/13) Eliminating the personal property tax would cost a substantial amount of revenue at all levels of government across the state. Eliminating the personal property tax without some replacement revenue would be wildly irresponsible, and would have devastating effects on local services and education throughout the state. And to its credit,…
As state lawmakers and others review and debate the findings of the recent education audit, it is important that they consider the economic and social conditions of our state's children. This is especially true when evaluating our state's K-12 education outcomes, which likely has more to do with the income of a student's parent than…