Dominion Post – Close to 30 people turned out at WVU’s Mountainlair on Sept. 6 to get schooled on West Virginia’s budget crisis and some of its effects on higher education. Read
Ted Boettner, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, explained some of the factors that led to Fiscal Year 2017’s $558 million deficit (address through a mix of budget cuts and tax hikes).
Among them, $425 million in business tax cuts since 2007 have largely failed to produce the expected job growth. Also, after peaking in 2014 at more than $500 million, severance tax revenue from coal and gas has plunged $243 million.
Since 2012, he said, higher education has seen budget cuts totaling $55.3 million. Meanwhile, since 2001, tuition has skyrocketed from about $2,500 per year to nearly $8,000.
