In West Virginia and across the country, families are facing an affordability crisis, one where the costs of life’s necessities are rising faster than wages. This is impacting many households’ ability to create a better, or even similar, life to the one their parents had.
There are many ways policymakers could meaningfully address these challenges — raise wages, invest in child care assistance, better fund schools, strengthen food and energy assistance — but in West Virginia, Gov. Patrick Morrisey is turning yet again to the same tired playbook: Trickle-down economics.
Earlier this week, Morrisey previewed his tax plan for 2026, including deeper cuts to the personal income tax, revenue from which makes up more than one-third of the state budget. This was surprising after multiple years of declining revenues drove state lawmakers to work from “flat” budgets that have repeatedly failed to meet the needs of our people.
In recent years, legislation with broad community and bipartisan support has failed to move due to the state’s shrinking budget. These include stalled bills to invest in child care, build clean water and flood mitigation infrastructure, and fix the school aid funding formula to stem an unprecedented number of school closures.
When asked why more tax cuts should be prioritized over investments in public services, Morrisey said that West Virginia is in an economic competition with our neighboring states to have the lowest tax rate. But multiple analyses show West Virginia already has a favorable tax structure compared with our neighbors. Where we fail to match up is in the quality of our public services. Our neighbors all spend more per capita, which allows them to invest more in public schools, child care, health care, worker pay and infrastructure than West Virginia.
Further, the assertion that tax rates determine where people locate isn’t supported by data (which finds most people move for work or to be near family, not the tax structure). Decreasing the income tax would not help the state effectively invest in the families and businesses located here now or the ones we want to attract. Instead, it undermines our goals to make the state appealing. When deep tax cuts result in deterioration of education, public safety, parks, roads and infrastructure, states like West Virginia render themselves less — not more — desirable places to live, raise a family and open a business.
And that is what is happening here now. West Virginia policymakers have spent the last several years promising the next tax cut would be the thing to grow our economy. But that hasn’t happened. In fact, tax cuts and the resulting budget cuts they forced have driven job losses. Since January 2024, West Virginia ranks 46th in employment growth. One major contributor is a shrinking public sector workforce.
Today, West Virginia has 8,000 fewer state and local public sector jobs than it did in 2020. Similarly, dozens of public schools and child care providers have closed their doors, nearly always citing impossible budget challenges. Again and again, rather than spurring job creation, we’ve seen good paying jobs with benefits disappear for many West Virginians as the budget has shrunk to accommodate increasingly deeper tax cuts.
The clear winners of nearly a decade of the trickle-down experiment at the state and federal levels? The state’s wealthiest households. Two-thirds of state and federal tax cuts over the last decade went to the wealthiest 20% of West Virginia households, totaling a combined $2.2 billion flowing to these households annually — roughly what the state spends on K-12 education and higher education combined. The top 1% of households receives combined tax cuts totaling an average $67,000 annually, more than the median household makes all year.
Another round of income tax cuts would look just like the last few: two-thirds would go to the top 20% of households, while regular families would see little in their pockets in exchange for even more cuts to public services. West Virginians need not accept more school closures, health care cuts, job losses and failed infrastructure as a result of a shrinking budget, particularly to prioritize more tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the state’s wealthiest households.
It’s time to reject the failed promise of trickle-down economics and invest in the public services that set our people up for success and help make life more affordable.
Read Kelly’s full op-ed.
Learn more about why additional tax cuts are misguided and not in the best interest of everyday West Virginians in Kelly and Sean’s recent blog post and in this recent article featuring further insight from Kelly.
The West Virginia Criminal Law Reform Coalition is holding a press conference in the Little Rotunda East (off the California Street side of West Virginia State Capitol) at 10am on Monday, January 12 to underscore the ongoing crisis in our jails, the ineffectiveness of enhanced penalties, and the solutions to persistent overcrowding that the coalition will be advocating for during the 2026 legislative session.
Coinciding with January’s interim meetings of the West Virginia Legislature, speakers at the press conference will highlight policy solutions including second look sentencing and medical respite for aging or sick incarcerated people, as well as challenge the previously announced intent by legislators to enhance penalties. Speakers include Kenny Matthews with the American Friends Service Committee, Jonathan Spence and Teri Castle with the WV REACH Initiative, Seth DiStefano with the WV Center on Budget and Policy, Mary Lister whose son is incarcerated, and Tim DiPiero, a Charleston-based defense attorney.
Members of the press and public are welcome and encouraged to attend in person. The press conference will be also live-streamed on the WV Criminal Law Reform Coalition Facebook page.
WHO: West Virginia Criminal Law Reform Coalition
WHAT: Compassion and Common Sense Press Conference
WHEN: Monday, January 12 at 10am
WHERE: Little Rotunda East, West Virginia State Capitol
WHY: West Virginia has an ongoing crisis in our regional jails and an aging prison population, costing the state millions of tax dollars that could be better invested in diversion and prevention. The coalition’s priorities would save tax dollars and improve the lives of West Virginians through policies that:
1) Reduce incarceration and recidivism;
2) Ease barriers for people in reentry; and
3) Do not enhance penalties that are proven to be ineffective and expensive.
The Hope Scholarship is a school voucher program that diverts taxpayer funds from public education and other public goods to cover the costs of private schooling and other non-public education options. The program is expected to cost West Virginia about $245 million in Fiscal Year 2027. When the program began in 2022, about $9 million was given to families across the state. Since then, the cost of the program has essentially doubled from year to year. Last year, the program cost nearly $50 million.
Unlike school voucher programs in other states, the Hope Scholarship operates with virtually no guidelines or guardrails. There is no limit to the number of students that can receive funding each year or a limit to the total amount of funding that will be awarded each year. There are also no requirements related to accreditation or location for schools (including private schools and microschools) or vendors that participate. This has allowed costs to skyrocket while diverting public funding to private schools and vendors in West Virginia and several other states including neighboring Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Georgia, California, Washington, and Arizona.
Despite rising costs and no evidence to support that the Hope Scholarship is positively affecting student outcomes, lawmakers choose to continue to invest hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into this program rather than the longstanding system of free, public schools across West Virginia that serve all students in their communities. If lawmakers instead chose to commit $245 million to our public schools, this would increase spending per pupil by $1,047 (7 percent) from the 2024 amount of $15,658 per pupil to $16,705. This would put West Virginia’s per pupil spending in line with the national average.
For a combined cost of $245 million, West Virginia could fund a five percent raise for classroom teachers and student support staff like nurses and school counselors, a seven percent raise for service staff like food service workers and bus operators, a 10 percent increase in funding for student transportation, a 100 percent increase in funding for special education, four to five additional student support staff and 10 additional classroom teachers for each school district (or shift the cost of four to five current student support staff and 10 current classroom teachers to state funding rather than district funding), and provide $50 million in additional funding for PEIA or other needs like parent and family support, community programs, tutoring, and after school or summer programs. Investing in these areas could have a wide range of benefits including improving student achievement and outcomes such as rates of graduation and employment in adulthood, addressing disparities in funding for students with disabilities, and increasing recruitment and retention of school staff.
Alternatively, if this investment is focused on our highest poverty school districts, this could fund a $3,338 (20 percent) increase in spending per pupil from an average of $16,821 to $20,159. West Virginia is one of only a handful of states that doesn’t account for poverty when distributing funds to schools, but research shows that students living in poverty require more resources to achieve the same outcomes as their peers.
The Hope Scholarship does not expand choice or opportunity. The program siphons away public dollars and weakens the public schools that serve more than 90 percent of children in our state. As the 2026 legislative session approaches, it is time for lawmakers to invest in what West Virginians value and recommit funding to the public schools that are promised to the children of our state.
Read Tamaya’s full blog post.
Check out this recent video from Together for Public Schools WV breaking down how the Hope Scholarship contributes to the increasingly common school closures and consolidations occurring across the Mountain State and what the loss of public schools means for our people and communities.
2026 may be the year that policymakers focus not on who pays the jail bills, but on how to use the jails less.
This year, counties can expect to pay $8.4 million more on their jail bills – even if they don’t use the jail more than they did last year.
That’s because after years of subsidies, the state has begun to charge counties what it costs to jail people awaiting trial: $67.27 per person per day. Counties who jail a disproportionately high number of people will pay a penalty rate of $80.72 per person per day.
And it won’t get better for counties when daily jail costs rise again in six months to $75.44 per person per day. For the 29 counties that paid the penalty rate last year, they could pay as much as $90.53 per person per day.
For years, policymaking has focused on who pays the jail bills.
After West Virginia established its 10 regional jails to replace county-run jails, the state charged counties a “per diem” rate for each day they jailed a person who is awaiting trial or serving a misdemeanor sentence. For several years, state officials artificially capped this rate at $48.25, even as real-world jail costs continued to grow for the state. But in 2023, lawmakers passed House Bill 3552, which raised the per diem by more than six dollars, with the requirement that the rate is recalculated annually based on jail costs.
By Fiscal Year 2025, county jail bills reached an all-time high of $49.1 million.
If each county uses the same number of jail days as they did in FY 2025, they will see their bills leap to a total of $57.5 million in FY 2026 and $64.5 million in FY 2027.
The challenge for counties is that state subsidies for jail bills are unlikely to return.
For the first time since the Great Recession, the state has seen two straight years of declining revenues. This week, Governor Morrisey proposed new tax cuts that would further reduce revenue.
At the same time, state agency budgets have remained flat or fallen behind inflation, while costs continue to increase. The West Virginia Legislature is facing public calls to fix the Public Employees Insurance Agency, fortify infrastructure and flood resiliency, and raise state employee pay.
New state revenues are not coming to solve the state’s problems.
How to Use the Jails Less and Reduce Costs
In December 2025, eight out of 10 regional jails were overcrowded. Of the 2,906 people incarcerated on the counties’ dime, 90.7 percent are legally innocent people awaiting trial.
Pretrial incarceration is not inevitable. In fact, West Virginia’s jail population should be shrinking. The state has seen population decline since the 1950s. There has also been an overall decrease in violent and property crimes over the last two decades.
The WVCBP has urged criminal system stakeholders to take advantage of existing laws and rules to limit unnecessary incarceration. These include providing prompt bond and capias hearings, holding mandatory bond review hearings in magistrate courts, and conducting regular case reviews of people who are detained pretrial.
But these procedures come days – or weeks – after a person has been jailed. None address the initial decision to send a person to jail.
Most people are surprised to learn that a person could be sent to jail without a lawyer present. But nearly every person arrested in West Virginia is brought before a magistrate alone while the magistrate decides whether they will go home or lose their liberty and await their next hearing from jail.
West Virginia law requires magistrates to set the least restrictive bond to ensure a person will appear in court and not commit a new crime. They must consider several factors, including a person’s criminal history, their ties to the community, the strength of the evidence against the person, and whether they can afford a money bond.
The average person – perhaps even the average lawyer – is unfamiliar with these legal factors and has no idea what to offer in their own defense. Without a lawyer marshaling these facts and arguments, magistrates don’t receive the relevant information needed to make an informed bond decision. Thus, people without a lawyer present are more likely to face financial bonds they cannot afford and to lose their freedom compared to people who do have legal representation.
Pretrial incarceration destabilizes people and their communities. People are more likely to lose their jobs, be evicted, lose custody of their children, miss medical appointments, and more.
Last year, people spent a combined 2,612 years in West Virginia jails awaiting trial or serving misdemeanor sentences – all time billed to the counties.
During that period, eighteen people died in regional jails. Eleven of them died awaiting trial. Five people, ranging in age from 33 to 43, died within a few days of entering the jail. Even so-called “short” periods of incarceration can be deadly.
In West Virginia, it can be up to five to 10 business days before a person has their first hearing with a lawyer, after which many people are released from jail.
Day One Representation
Why not save the county those jail days and start with a lawyer on day one?
According to the Rules of Criminal Procedure, that’s already supposed to happen. And yet, no West Virginia county provides a lawyer during this critical hearing.
A lawyer on day one is possible. Federal criminal courts have provided day one representation for decades. When children are arrested in West Virginia, a lawyer must be present for a detention hearing. States around the country have implemented day one representation or launched pilot programs.
When a lawyer is present on day one, the likelihood of pretrial release increases, eliminating costly, unnecessary days behind bars.
But there are other benefits. Having a lawyer on day one has been shown to reduce the likelihood of bond violations and future arrests. People who had a lawyer at their first hearing are more likely to make future court appearances. Judicial officers who oversaw day one pilot programs appreciated how the presence of lawyers increased efficiency and led to more informed decisions.
While implementation should be flexible and tailored to each community, it is time for West Virginia counties to provide a lawyer when a magistrate decides whether or not to send someone to jail.
This policy is a rare instance when the interests of county governments, state budget hawks, and working-class families align. All that’s left is the political will.
Read Sara’s full blog post.
The WVCBP’s annual Budget and Bites mixer and happy hour is just around the corner! Each year we gather to network, learn from each other, and share the Center’s analysis of the governor’s proposed budget.
It’s no secret that the state budget impacts every area of life. We want the West Virginia budget to work for West Virginians. We welcome you to join us and share in our vision for a more thriving Mountain State.
The event will be hosted at the WV School Service Personnel Association Conference Center on Wednesday, January 21, 2026 from 4:30-6pm.
At 5pm Kelly Allen, executive director, will introduce Sean O’Leary, senior policy analyst, who will provide a brief analysis of the governor’s proposed budget. Guests can enjoy an informal meet and greet with our team following the presentation. Appetizers and drinks will be provided. We’re thrilled to be joined this year by local folk musician, Jim Snyder, who has generously offered to share his talents with us.
Please note, registration is required to attend. You can purchase your ticket for the event here. Your contribution strengthens the work we do every day to ensure a fair, transparent state budget that invests in our communities.
On behalf of all of us here at the WVCBP, thank you so much for your support of our effort to improve economic mobility and quality of life for all West Virginians. We hope to see you at this year’s Budget and Bites!
Since taking office in January 2025, the Trump Administration, DOGE, and Congress have taken a chainsaw to government grants, programs, and services. The WVCBP has been tracking the ongoing impacts of federal funding cuts and job losses in West Virginia, including terminated grants to state agencies, terminated grants to non-profit and non-governmental entities, federal offices closed through lease cancellations, federal workers fired or laid off, and federal program cuts enacted by Congress.
Since January 2025, these federal funding cuts have now cost West Virginians at least $800 million and 2,200 jobs.
You can find our regularly updated tracker page here.
Happy New Year from all of us here at the WVCBP! As we enter 2026, we wanted to take a moment to share our most read posts from 2025. From fighting for public schools and criminal legal reform to advocating for equitable taxation policies and funding for critical safety net programs like SNAP and Medicaid, the WVCBP remains committed to working to improve quality of life for all in the Mountain State.
You can find links to each of our 10 most read posts in 2025 in the list below:
The enhanced premium tax credits (PTCs) that millions nationwide depend on to afford their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace expired on December 31, resulting in massive premium spikes for people across the country.
As a result, many marketplace enrollees are being forced to make impossible decisions, like whether to pay for their health coverage or be able to afford basic costs such as rent, groceries, and car payments. Congress’s failure to date to address the premium spikes comes on top of huge cuts to Medicaid and other marketplace changes in the Republicans’ megabill passed this summer that will leave even more people without coverage over time.
Earlier this week, the US House of Representatives passed a measure to extend the enhanced PTCs for three years, demonstrating bipartisan support for helping keep health care affordable for everyday folks across the country. All eyes are now on the Senate.
If you receive your health insurance through HealthCare.gov, please note that open enrollment ends January 15 for coverage that starts in February. We encourage you to review plans and choose what best fits your needs before next week’s deadline. You can learn more and find some open enrollment FAQs here.
See a few examples of ways West Virginia lawmakers could lower health care costs this legislative session in this recent article, featuring insight from the WVCBP.
Black Policy Day was established by Crystal Good (Black By God), Katonya Hart (Partnerships for the Arts & Education), and Dr. Shanequa Smith (WV Black Voter Impact Initiative) who shared a vision of creating space for historically oppressed and ignored groups to amplify their stories and participate in the policymaking process.
This free event welcomes all to visit the Capitol to engage with their state leaders, discuss the issues that are most impacting Black and minority communities, and learn how to take action to make impacts in their communities.
Throughout the day, there will be opportunities to engage in meetings with lawmakers, space for vendors and tabling opportunities, youth activities, and much more. Information about current opportunities and resources will be provided. The afternoon will include a youth-centered lunch event with accompanying activities. Child care is available all day.
Learn more, register for free, or make a donation to the event here.
