The Senate passed a budget compromise and kept a left for dead bill alive during floor session Thursday evening.
House Bill 2024, the vehicle for this year’s Budget Bill, sets the general revenue budget for fiscal year 2024, which begins July 1. The legislation sets the budget at at $4.87 billion, an amount higher than the original budgets passed by the Senate and House earlier in the session.
The bill encompasses all completed legislation that has fiscal impact, including the 21.25 percent tax cut, the $2,300 across the board raise for teachers, school service personnel, and State Police troopers and staff, as well as the bill that attempts to make PEIA solvent.
The legislation also includes more than $1.165 billion in one-time surplus funding at the back of the bill that is expected to be funded from a surplus that is projected to be around $1.7 billion by the end of the fiscal year.
The bill must now head back to the House of Delegates for final approval, but Senate leadership is confident it will complete legislative action in its current form.
Also on Thursday evening, Senator Charles Trump (R-Morgan) made a successful motion to discharge House Bill 3018 from committee, a bill that would establish that 18 is the age of consent to marry in West Virginia. The state currently has no floor for the age of consent. The bill was previously halted in Trump’s judiciary committee when a vote to report the bill to the floor was defeated 9-8. The bill will be on third reading with the right to amend tomorrow.
The body completed action on 21 bills across three floor sessions Thursday.
The Senate is adjourned until tomorrow, March 10, at 11 a.m.
