The 2020 fiscal year budget bill received passage from the Senate Finance committee, Thursday.
In a presentation provided by counsel, members of the committee learned specific details of the legislation, which reduces the Governor’s introduced budget by a total of $100 million. Most notably of the reduced allocation is the withdrawal of the Governor’s proposed teacher raise totaling $80,000,000.
Counsel additionally listed and explained the proposed bill’s improvements to the Governor’s budget, totaling $137,048,000. Potential improvements to the budget would go towards numerous bills that have been proposed during the session. Of these bills were:
- Senate Bill 238, intended to increase certain penalties for passing stopped school bus, received a proposed improvement of $833,301 to add forward and backward facing cameras on all state school buses.
- Senate Bill 522, which would create a special road repair fund through a $110,000,000 improvement that would be operated by the Division of Highways.
- Senate Bill 544, which would increase salaries for members of WV State Police over three-year period. An improvement of $834,000 was added to this bill.
According the bill, $15,890,000 would be collected through a reduction of general revenue following the passage of Senate Bills 30, 36, 106, 117, 333 and 502.
Numerous changes to the state’s general revenue were also described during counsel’s presentation. To get more information and specific numbers concerning these changes click here.
In conclusion, Senate Bill 150 lists a total appropriation of $13,729,074,601.
