Governor Justice signed the FY 2021 budget last week, after the budget was completed before the end of the session. While there was some back and forth between the House and Senate versions of the budget, the final budget saw only small changes from the Governor’s proposal.
As noted before, several tax bills passed the legislature that required offsetting changes to the budget, as well as bills requiring new spending. The governor also made adjustments to the contributions to the Teachers’ and Public Employee Retirement Systems, freeing up $20.5 million. Altogether, the final FY 2021 budget was $10.5 million less than the governor’s original proposal, and $61.4 million below the FY 2020 budget .
Two of the governor’s proposed new spending increases survived the budget process. The final budget includes the $19.8 million the governor proposed for clearing the I/DD waiver, as well as the $13.5 million the governor proposed for social services/foster care. In addition, the final budget includes another $16 million for foster care services, due to the passage of HB 4092, the foster care reform bill. Overall, social services/foster care sees a $30.4 million increase from FY 2020.
Other increases proposed by the governor that were made it into the final budget include $1 million for the Community Food Program, $300,000 for Food Banks, $7 million for tourism, $4.5 million for Communities in Schools, and $3.3 million for the Mountaineer Challenge Academy.
The various Jim’s Dream/Jobs and Hope spending initiatives proposed by the governor were scaled back, from a total of $21 million in the governor’s proposal to just $8.3 million in the final budget.
Other areas of the budget seeing a change from the governor’s proposal include a $3.8 million increase for the Development Office, a $1 million increase in the local share of the school aid formula, a $1.1 million increase for the Division of Health central office, a $16.9 million increase in General Revenue appropriations for Medicaid, a $6 million cut in the Governor’s Civil Contingent Fund for the Milton flood wall, and a $3 million cut to the WV Invests Grant Program.
In addition, the legislature also added $2 million to the Governor’s Civil Contingent Fund for a Public Health Emergency Response Fund, in response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
Below is a table listing the major changes from the FY 2020 and FY 2021 budgets.
