Due to a combination of factors, including declining student enrollment, expired pandemic-era federal relief funding, the growing Hope Scholarship, and an outdated funding formula, public schools across West Virginia have less funding and resources to meet the needs of their students and communities. This has culminated in a new wave of school closures.
Over the past several years, the number of public schools in West Virginia has dwindled. More than 70 public schools have closed across the state since 2019 and more closures are on the way.
The WVCBP is tracking these closures across the state. Check out our new tracker page to learn more about recently proposed and approved public school closures, how school closures work, and what you can do to join the fight to protect public schools in the Mountain State.
If a school in your area is being considered for closure, or already closed, we encourage you to get involved! Some options include:
• Going to school board or Local School improvement Council (LSIC) meetings and asking questions;
• Sharing your stories and concerns;
• Pushing for fair, sustainable funding for public education; and
• Advocating for guardrails on programs like the Hope Scholarship so they don’t undercut public schools.
Check out Tamaya’svideo on the public school closure tracker page.
The Hope Scholarship is one driver of ongoing public school closures. Watch Tamaya’s video detailing how Hope Scholarship expansion costs are significantly higher than initial projections, diverting more money from public schools. You can find her accompanying blog post here.
Read this recent article featuring our tracker page and discussing the dangers of unregulated school choice.
Click the image below to be directed to our interactive public school closure map.
For the tens of thousands of West Virginians who rely on expiring tax credits to afford their health coverage, there is no time to waste. Congress must extend them now.
Check out this video from WVCBP health and saftey net policy analyst, Rhonda Rogombe, to learn more about the current landscape.
Are you impacted and wondering what this means for you? Use the APTC savings calculator to see how much more you might have to pay if Congress fails to extend these credits. Access the calculator here.
Ready to take action? Tell WV’s members of Congress to protect affordable health care! You can send them a message here.
As part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (HR 1) Congress enacted historically significant changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that will have impacts on enrollees, state policymakers, and the broader food system.
Rhonda’s new fact sheet documents those changes and when they will go into effect. View the fact sheet in the images below or download it here.
Even without estimates of the new administrative costs associated with the SNAP and Medicaid changes included in HR 1, the cost shifts alone in the legislation could add up to $659 million in new direct West Virginia state budget costs through FY 2030.
As a result of HR 1, increased need will fall to state and local governments, as well as charitable providers, due to new federal restrictions or reduced federal funding included in the legislation.
Now: FY 2026
FY 2027
FY 2028
Rural Health Transformation Fund Will Not Offset Losses
While Congress did enact a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Fund (RHTF) as part of HR 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has made clear that the RHTF is not meant to backfill deep Medicaid cuts or otherwise shore up rural health providers who may be impacted by them. CMS’ funding notice for the RHTF specifies that no more than 15 percent of funds can be used for provider payments.
And while the Medicaid cuts in HR 1 are permanent, the RHTF is temporary, distributing far less than the amount of annual Medicaid cuts and for only five years. Once fully phased in, HR 1 is expected to result in a $1 billion federal health care funding reduction for West Virginia annually, while the state is only expected to receive $100- 200 million annually from the RHTF.
To put this in perspective, West Virginia’s annual share of the RHTF is probably not even enough to offset the state-directed payment and provider tax reductions in federal funds beginning in FY 2029, which make up only a portion of the reduction in federal health care funding from HR 1.
Read the full fact sheet.
The enactment of HR 1 (“One Big Beautiful Bill”) cements the largest cuts to Medicaid in history. It also introduces new bureaucratic barriers to access and maintain Medicaid (e.g., work requirements). A recent article, including comment from WVCBP executive director Kelly Allen, provides further details. Excerpt below:
West Virginia’s Medicaid system faces significant changes through the recently-passed “Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” including implementation of a work requirement structure, a state agency leader told lawmakers.
Cindy Beane, commissioner for the West Virginia Bureau for Medical Services, made her presentation to the Joint Standing Committee on Finance during interim legislative meetings at the state Capitol.
The “Big, Beautiful Bill Act” made big changes to Medicaid, a healthcare program that is jointly funded by the federal government and states.
West Virginia’s Medicaid program costs around $5.5 billion annually, with the federal government covering about eight-tenths of that cost. The overall Medicaid allocation funds a significant portion of the state’s economy and healthcare system.
About 504,000 people are enrolled in Medicaid in West Virginia, Beane said. About 160,000 of those are in the Medicaid expansion population.
The legislation institutes more rigorous requirements for Medicaid that are anticipated to cause millions of people to drop their Medicaid coverage.
One of the new provisions is “community engagement requirements” of at least 80 hours per month of work, education or service for able-bodied adults without dependents.
Beane said the work requirements have prompted the most questions to her office.
Critics have said the work requirement actually represents greater red tape for recipients who could forget to maintain their coverage, misunderstand steps or miss a key update.
People would also have to verify their eligibility to be in the program twice a year, rather than just once. And the bill adds a more rigorous income verification for those who enroll in the Affordable Care Act’s health care coverage.
“Commissioner Beane’s testimony makes clear the Big Beautiful Bill will have ‘big’ consequences for state policymakers and people who rely on Medicaid,” Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy think tank said after the presentation to lawmakers.
“State lawmakers will be forced to absorb hundreds of millions of dollars in new costs over the next several years to implement new bureaucratic hoops for enrollees to jump through and to offset federal cuts to provider payments.”
Allen continued by expressing concern about costs that will be necessary for the state to implement changes.
“The new requirements for enrollees will mean the state will have to make costly new investments in technology and systems upgrades, while all available research tells us more frequent eligibility checks and work reporting requirements mostly result in kicking people off the program who are meeting all the requirements but get tripped up by the confusing new paperwork.
Preparing for the changes will require significant front end work by West Virginia officials, Beane told lawmakers.
“They will be anticipating that you will be ready next January. So we at West Virginia Medicaid have already started work on this,” Beane said.
She elaborated that the state is focused on system requirements and notifications, including making sure “that individuals understand what they are trying to report with regards to their work requirements.”
Beane said West Virginia is participating in a small pilot program with seven other states to explore technology so that Medicaid recipients who are working could report work hours efficiently through a “no touch solution so that people aren’t constantly having to report their work hours.”
[Delegate Matthew] Rohrbach asked for more detail about how implementation of work requirements will move forward.
“Are we staffed up for that? Are you going to need more staff? What are the requirements going to be to meet that?” Rohrbach asked.
Beane said that is receiving significant planning up front.
“I think what we’re going to try to do as much as possible with regards to work requirements is to make it as ex parte, as no touch as possible, to see if there are some technologies to employ to where it’s not staff intensive,” she said. “But I do think there will be increased demands.”
Delegate Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, asked about the overall expense of the work requirements: “The community engagement portion of this, with different technologies and systems to be able to take a look at that, do we have a cost for that?”
Beane responded, “We do not currently have a cost, but there will be a cost.”
Read the full article.
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 $675 million and 475 jobs.
Our tracker page was updated recently to account for cuts to West Virginia’s Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding. You can find the pagehere.
You can learn more about BEAD restructuring and the consequences here.
Taylor, Randolph, Fayette, Jackson, and Calhoun counties! Do you have questions about how federal funding changes will impact health care in your community?
Join the WVCBP for a community conversation where you can:
You can find details about date, time, and location for the respective community conversations in the flyers below. At each event, a presentation will be provided by WVCBP staff.
You can RSVP for the Taylor County event here, the Randolph County event here, the Fayette County event here, the Jackson County event here, and the Calhoun County event here.
For more info, please email our community engagement coordinator, Alex.
Do you have questions about how recent federal funding changes will impact health care access and your community?
The WVCBP is here to help. We are offering to host community conversations for concerned community members to:
If you are interested, please fill out this form and we will be in contact with you about scheduling a community meeting near you!
Together for Public Schools WV (TFPS) is a statewide coalition of organizations, individuals, parents, and school staff who are public school proud and believe that every child across West Virginia should have access to a high-quality public education and a full array of educational and extracurricular services.
TFPS will be hosting public education town halls in Jefferson and Berkeley counties this month. Please find further details in the flyers below.
The WVCBP is dedicated to advancing policies and budgets that improve economic mobility and quality of life for all in the Mountain State.
Check out our 2024 Annual Report to learn about our work over the last year!
