For Immediate Release: December 13, 2023 Contact: Kelly Allen, (304)-612-4180 Charleston, WV – The vast majority of school-age children in West Virginia attend and receive their education through the public school system, and West Virginia’s state constitution requires "a thorough and efficient system of free schools." But a growing Hope Scholarship voucher program is diverting public resources…
Tax and Budget
Charleston Gazette-Mail - Throughout their reign, the GOP legislative supermajority has treated public school and public employees as adversaries, perhaps because they are the literal personification of the party’s failure to achieve a core goal of drastically shrinking the size of government and government services. Read the full article. Certainly, two successful statewide walkouts by…
Dominion-Post - Recently, The Dominion Post Editorial Board met with Kelly Allen from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, and she taught us a few things about how the state’s budget works (or, as is sometimes the case, doesn’t work). Read the full editorial. Unlike many other states, the governor of West Virginia…
West Virginia MetroNews - Gov. Jim Justice has suggested a 5% pay raise to offset rising insurance premium costs for public employees, but West Virginia’s Senate Finance chairman says officials will need to calculate how much state government can actually afford to spend. Read the full article. “You can’t just write checks and then not…
For the first four months of FY 2024, West Virginia's General Revenue collections are down $210.7 million compared to the same period in FY 2023, despite the state exceeding the fairly modest revenue estimates set by the Governor Justice administration in an effort to maintain a 'flat budget.' The combination of self-inflicted tax cuts and…
Mountain State Spotlight - From the Greenbrier to the governor’s mansion, Jim Justice has spread the word about the state’s $1.8 billion surplus this year. But there’s another $1 billion just laying around, too. Read the full article. It’s called the Rainy Day Fund. In plain English, it’s West Virginia’s emergency fund — the proverbial “oh crap”…
July’s tax collections continued a concerning trend of declining revenues, even before the 2023 tax cuts have been fully implemented. July’s collections came in 12 percent, or $46 million, below last July’s revenues, barely exceeding fairly modest revenue estimates and creating significant doubt about the current and future availability of revenue to pay for a…
With the end of West Virginia’s 2023 fiscal year on June 30 came bold declarations about the strength of West Virginia’s economy and its historic revenue surplus. A deeper dive into the state’s tax receipts for the year reveals more of a mixed bag: strong tax receipts in the first half of the year slowing…
West Virginia MetroNews - West Virginia’s state government ended the fiscal year $1.8 billion over estimate. Read the full article. Much of the surplus is already spoken for through legislative appropriations, and state officials will determine what to do with the rest. And, of course, political views differed on whether the surplus is a sign…
West Virginia Public Broadcasting - Gov. Jim Justice announced on Friday that West Virginia’s cumulative revenue collections for Fiscal Year 2023 will come in at $1.8 billion over estimate. He said the budget surplus breaks the record for biggest single-year revenue surplus in state history for the second year in a row. Read the full…