Legislature passes balanced budget – $11.4 in appropriations
The West Virginia Legislature passed House Bill 2014, the Budget Bill, in just three days of an extended session. The $11.4 billion worth of appropriations in the budget bill was agreed to by the House of Delegates and state Senate quickly following the end of the 2013 Regular Session . Despite economic challenges the budget is balanced, as required by the state constitution and avoids any layoffs, furloughs or appropriations from rainy-day reserve funds.
To meet this year’s budgetary challenges and the projected slowing of revenue collections, the Governor first asked for most state agencies to trim their Fiscal Year 2014 Budget requests by 7.5 percent from the current year. Certain agencies and programs deemed paramount to the health, safety and well being of the state were exempted from these cuts. Some exclusions from cuts include: Medicaid and other health care related programs, the Division of Corrections, the State Police, certain funding for public education, the Veterans’ Nursing Home, Miner’s Health, Safety and Training, the Aged and Disabled waiver program for Seniors, and any funds necessary for debt service or required contributions to benefit plans so as to keep the state current on its bills and retain solid financial footing.
The agreed to budget includes approximately $4.1 billion in general tax revenues, which is nearly $14 million less than the general revenue spending plan adopted in the prior legislative session and more than $200 million or 2 percent less when all sources of revenue are counted. Further historical comparisons reveal that the budget just adopted is approximately $150 million less than the budget bill adopted four years ago.
Of the $4.1 billion in General Revenue appropriations Public Education accounts for over 48 percent, Health and Human Resources requires 22.5 percent, and Higher Education and Military Affairs and Public Safety shares are 10.3 percent and 8.8 percent respectively.
The compromise bill provides $45.6 million for a senior citizens medicaid waiver program that helps to keep our seniors in their own homes while ensuring that they receive the care they need. For each dollar put into this program the state draws approximately three dollars from the federal government.
The state police’s share of the new budget includes $3 million meant to allow a new trooper cadet class. Proposed cuts in funding for domestic violence programs, and programs aimed at addressing child abuse have been restored to the prior years level and $125,000 has been included for anti-sexual assault efforts that had been eliminated in the Governor’s original proposal.
Lawmakers ensured that college scholarship programs would be fully funded, with $37.5 million for PROMISE, $470,000 for engineering, science and technology scholarships and $200,000 for the Underwood-Smith program. Funding was also fully restored for the HSTA program.
In keeping with it’s original intent to promote tourism, the lottery portion of the budget provide $2.5 million to more than 400 cultural events and programs around the state. These include county fairs, local festivals, Fourth of July celebrations, theaters and museums.
Other spending spelled out in the budget measure include $4.1 billion in federal funds and block grants, $1.5 billion in agency generated monies known as special revenue, nearly $1.2 billion from fuel taxes and other sources reserved for road needs, and $408 million from lottery proceeds. Surplus-supplied funding totals $50 million.
With the budget bill now on his desk, the Governor has until Tuesday to exercise the authority of the line item veto. The 2014 Fiscal Year budget takes effect July 1 of 2013 through June 30th, 2014.
