As it was passed over from the state Senate, SB 890 would change the minimum public school 180 instructional day requirement into a minimum 900 instructional hour requirement. The bill would also convert other public school calendar provisions from days or months to hours.

After considering the bill during three meetings this week, the House Education Committee made some changes on Friday afternoon, increasing instructional time from 900 hours to 954 hours.

That change and others will now go to the full House of Delegates for consideration during the final week of the regular legislative session. For the bill to reach final passage, the state Senate would need to approve the changes too.

The education committee removed references to the school employment term to prevent affecting existing employment contracts, and the committee removed references to retirement so those benefits would not be affected.

The House Education Committee also incorporated provisions of another bill, SB 802, renaming “leave teacher alone days” as “educator focus days,” limiting faculty senate meetings to three two‑hour blocks held on those days.

The legislation also aims to change public notice for school calendar hearings by allowing posting on county websites or other local outlets instead of newspapers.

Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said he likes the concept of greater flexibility. But he expressed concern that the result could be a four-day week.

“If it does result in a four day week, we do not have adequate childcare options in this state,” Pushkin said, referring to family needs.

“I don’t think that’s the answer, is to cut down on the amount of days, although I would like to see flexibility.”

Delegate Elliott Pritt, R-Fayette, also had a list of concerns. But he told his community he would vote for the legislation.

“I have concerns about bus drivers missing out on extra run pay. I have concerns about kids not being fed on as many days,” Pritt said.

“However, stating my concerns, I have very rarely heard from so many of my co workers and board members back home on a bill, and I have not heard a single one asked me to vote no. So every person I’ve heard from back home that I work with, my entire school board and my county superintendent have requested that I do vote for this bill.”

He concluded, “So I’m going to vote for the bill.”

Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady, earlier in the day, had described her continued support for the legislation.

“A lot of our counties talk about how we need flexibility,” said Grady, R-Mason. “You’ve seen a lot of calendar adjustment bills in the House — like, you can’t start before Labor Day or after Memorial Day. There were several that took away that 180-day requirement.

“Nobody can tell us where that came from. It’s just an arbitrary number that nobody can describe or say why it was 180 days. Some states do hours, some do hours and days and some do just days. So this was just something to give counties an opportunity to be a little flexible with their calendar if they want to.”

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House Finance Chairman Vernon Criss said the timing is intentional.

“We wanted the budget out so that we have the opportunity for the governor to take a look at it, and if he decides to do line item vetoes then we have an opportunity to override those vetoes,” Criss, R-Wood, told reporters following the evening passage vote.

Criss said lawmakers ramped up their budget process this year because of experience from last year. In his first year in office, Gov. Patrick Morrisey used the line-item veto 29 times. 

“That was very high,” Criss said.

A year ago, Criss said, “we had no knowledge of how this administration was going to act towards a budget. And so we learned in the process of the 29 veto items that he did in the current budget that we needed to have the ability to voice our opinions about those 29 line item vetoes.

“So this year we decided we were going to back up and with the consent of the Senate do this project so that we have an opportunity to voice our opinion if that’s what he decides to do.”

As it lines out, the Senate would send the budget bill to the governor on Friday. The governor then has five days to act. Overriding vetoes would take votes by two-thirds of legislative members. The regular legislative session ends in a little more than a week, midnight March 14.

On Thursday, the budget bill bounced first from the Senate in morning and then to the House in the evening.

“This is a process in which we have to negotiate with the governor’s office, with our counterparts in the House — and they’ve done a good job working with us on this budget, and we had it ready,” said Senate Finance Chairman Jason Barrett, R-Berkeley.

“So we’re comfortable putting the budget out early.”

The latest version of the budget bill reflects about $5.5 billion in estimated general revenue spending.

The package has the average 3% public employee pay raise and allows room for the 5% personal income tax cut that the governor proposed. The governor has consistently asked lawmakers to collaborate to find a way to get to a 10% tax cut.

The 5% amounts to about $125 million in state revenue. The 10% would be $250 million.

“Obviously the 5% tax cut that is built into the budget is incredibly important to the Senate. We wanted to go to 10 percent; just couldn’t get there,” Barrett said.

Total funding for the Hope Scholarship is about $290 million through several funding methods. This is the first year the funding has been available to all families outside the public school system.

“Fully funding the Hope Scholarship has been incredibly important to the Senate, particularly those in the Republican caucus,” Barrett said. “To be able to do that for five quarters and fully fund for fiscal year ’27 and also the first quarter of fiscal year ’28 is really important.”

Although lawmakers discussed additional financial support for the public school system, that is not reflected in this budget.

Delegate John Williams, the lead Democrat on the House Finance Committee, said the budget doesn’t make priorities of West Virginia’s needs. That includes school system funding, water infrastructure and needs in the foster care system.

“I’m concerned still with our state budget. I’m concerned that our services continue to suffer from attrition because of inflation,” said Williams, D-Monongalia.

“I know that the taxpayer expects us and deserves from us that we be good stewards with their dollars. I also think the taxpayer expects the state of West Virginia to take care of basic needs.”

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The tax cut is being considered as metallurgical coal typically used in steel making faces challenging market forces.

“This bill is simple, tries to support our coal miners. This tries to support all of southern West Virginia, a fair piece of northcentral West Virginia. It’s clear that this will help us, and it’s clear that this will begin to diminish some of that disadvantage that we have,” said Delegate Daniel Linville, R-Cabell.

The bill passed 92-1 and now goes to the state Senate.

Current law has a 5% severance tax on the gross value of metallurgical coal. This bill, as it was constructed when the committee first took it up, would have had a stepdown to 4.5% in fiscal 2026, 4% in 2027 and 3.5% in 2028 — but then back up to 5% after 2031.

In dollars, the first year amounts to a roughly $15 million tax cut for metallurgical coal producers. Overall state revenue from severance taxes on metallurgical coal amounts to about $150 million a year, the committee agreed.

The five‑year step‑down period could amount to about $180 million in forgone severance tax on metallurgical coal.

The tax cut is meant to provide temporary relief to the met coal industry during a difficult market period.

Metallurgical coal is primarily used to produce coke, an essential fuel and carbon source for manufacturing steel in blast furnaces. Demand for that kind of coal has been stable compared to others, particularly internationally, but the sector has faced headwinds.

China has maintained high tariffs on U.S. metallurgical coal, significantly disrupting trade flows. The economic retaliation followed U.S. trade actions, causing a sharp decline in U.S. coal exports to China.

In mid-February, Greenbrier Minerals notified Workforce West Virginia of its decision to conduct a mass layoff at its facility in Lorado, affecting 530 employees.

Overall, West Virginia coal industry officials have said, about 10 mines and about 1000 miners have experienced furloughs because of the current economic situation.

Delegate Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, said he would vote for the bill to support coal miners in southern West Virginia. But he said he wanted to explain why the relief is necessary.

“And that’s for the past year there has been a war on coal and it’s from tariffs. That’s a fact,” Fluharty said.

Delegate Mark Zatezalo, R-Hancock, said he doubts tariffs are the problem. Instead, he said the issue derives from global market competition.

“It’s a real issue. Hopefully it’ll get lightened up in the near future,” he said. “But it’s not about tariffs. It’s about competition, and the competition comes from Australia.”

Delegate Ray Canterbury, R-Greenbrier, said the tax cut is necessary right now. But he said projected that the tariffs will be helpful over the longer term.

“Actually, I think that because of the tariffs, in fact, our problem in the steel industry, or the coal industry, may temporary,” he said.

“Because, I think in large part due to the tariffs, we’re seeing a reshoring of the steel industry, and this will, of course, create a larger domestic market for America, our coal.”

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The bill passed the House on a 91-1 vote and now goes to the state Senate.

That is scaled way back from changes that were proposed just a few weeks ago.

Earlier this year, the Finance Committee rolled out a bill aimed at more broadly refining the Hope Scholarship.

The bill would have trimmed Hope Scholarship expenses by capping the amount to families and refining allowable expenses to categories of tuition, curriculum and technology. That bill also would have required standardized testing for Hope Scholarship recipients intended to compare academic achievement with public schools students.

As the bill kept bouncing from agenda to agenda with no action, the governor, the state treasurer and homeschool families expressed displeasure. Now, only the quarterly funding proposal remains.

“So this is very different from the bill that was first originated in the finance, right?” asked Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha.

With this scaled back bill, the program moves to a quarterly deposit schedule: August 15, Oct. 15, Jan. 15 and April 15.

The state funding cycle for the Hope Scholarship has often resulted in a late-summer logjam.

Right now, one half of the total annually required deposit is made no later than August 15, and the remaining half is made no later than Jan. 15.

The August 25 date has been right after state starts a new fiscal year, so that has resulted in a complicated situation for state finances.

For families buying school supplies — particularly homeschool families — the cycle often results in delayed purchases when they would normally be wanting to start the latest round of lessons.

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Delegate Bill Ridenhour, R-Jefferson, participated in a tour this week of the Culture Center and it left an impression on him.

“That place is in serious condition. We’re lucky, frankly, that we haven’t had catastrophic issues in the facility,” Ridenour said. “It’s pretty bad. We need to really work on this.”

House Bill 5685 proposes a financial plan to fund major improvements, authorizing the Economic Development Authority to issue up to $150 million in revenue bonds to cover the costs of repairing, equipping and maintaining the facility.

The legislation establishes a dedicated Cultural Center Improvements Revenue Debt Service Fund.

Delegates passed the bill on a 88-5 vote. It now goes to the state Senate.

The Culture Center, about to turn a half century old, has seen better days.

“The summer of 1976, that’s when this building opened. Fifty years ago,” said House Finance Chairman Vernon Criss, R-Wood.

“You can see some of the problems that we are addressing, that we need to address in the building.”

The building is not adequately insulated and suffers from water intrusion in several areas, including roof leaks.

The existing mechanical system is at the end of its life. That includes the air handling units, heating water system, distribution pumps, distribution system and building control system. The electrical system is unreliable outdated and inadequate for the building’s usage needs.

The plumbing system needs a complete replacement. Now there are leaks, water damage and inoperable fixtures like water fountains.

“This is an important building for the state of West Virginia. This houses some of the most priceless collections in our state’s history, and we need to make it a priority,” House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said this week.

“We appreciate that commitment to preservation of our state’s history and our culture. This is a building that’s used by people of every stripe of society, from professional researchers, professional geologists, world class performers to young people at elementary schools who are coming here on field trips for the first time. This building needs to be a showcase.”

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The bill passed on a 89-2 vote and now goes to the state Senate.

Financial support for West Virginia’s public schools has been a recurring theme of this year’s legislative session, although additional dollars are not coming right away.

“I would love to give it to them this year, but we don’t have it in the budget right now,” Delegate Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, said during House discussion today.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey has made a priority of passing a 5% personal income tax cut, although the governor aspires to 10 percent. And as Hope Scholarship funding has opened for all students outside the public school system, that’s now a roughly $230 million expense. 

In December, the state school board approved consolidations and closures of more than a dozen schools across six counties. The state board recently agreed to two more closures in Wayne County. The state also experienced a wave of school consolidations last year.

“If your house is on fire, you don’t call the fire department and say take your time, show up in a couple of days, couple of months, three years. This is urgent. It needs our attention right now,” said Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha.

“How many schools are going to close in each of our districts during the next three years?”

HB 5453 is a significant revision of the current public school funding formula to make it simpler, more transparent and more aligned with student needs — especially special education — while moving away from the current step‑based, multi‑schedule formula.

Under the most recent version of the bill,  the current school funding aid formula would be used for the coming three academic years, until 2029.

Starting with 2029-2030, all county school boards would be funded by block grants of $6,100 per enrolled student. County boards that have fewer than 1,200 enrolled pupils per county would be funded at the minimum level of 1,200 students.

Funding for public charter schools, starting in 2029 and after that, would be $8,600 per student. The minimum student population level wouldn’t apply.

The bill establishes three tiers for additional funding for special needs students. And there are more categories of supplemental funding for areas like transportation, vocational and technical education centers, alternative learning centers and pilot programs.

Providing more financial support for public schools has been a priority for Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady, R-Mason. The committee she leads explored three potential options earlier this year, but none advanced any farther.

“Speaking of frustrations, none of the school funding bills we passed in the Senate Education are going to make it to the budget so I’m perfectly fine adjourning sine die,” Grady said in a hallway interview earlier this week, both laughing and grimacing.

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The bill passed on an 89-3 vote.

“There are legitimate uses of these kiosks. There is a tremendous abuse of these to, frankly, perpetrate fraud and scams targeting seniors,” said Delegate Bob Fehrenbacher, R-Wood.

“A senior would get a call encouraging them that there’s an urgent situation that requires immediate transfer of cash to one of these machines to either safeguard their earnings, their reserves or to transfer it to some immediate need.”

He continued, “These targeted efforts have resulted in over $300 billion nationwide to perpetrate these fraud and the vast majority of them are targeted are seniors. The licensing and regulations that are being imposed in this legislation will protect those seniors.”

H. B. 5353 is intended to better regulate the kinds of kiosks often found in convenience stores and gas stations allowing users to buy or sell cryptocurrencies using cash or debit cards. Those kiosks often have fees ranging from 5% to 15% per transaction.

A similar bill in the Senate, SB 887, got as far as the finance committee but did not make it to the floor. Sometimes when bills with the same concept are running in both chambers, the focus eventually narrows to one of them.

The legislation proposes a comprehensive legal framework to integrate virtual currency kiosks into the state’s existing money transmission laws.

The bill establishes a formal licensure process for operators, requiring them to register through national systems and adhere to strict oversight.

To protect consumers, the bill mandates detailed risk disclosures, provides daily transaction limits and requires the issuance of physical receipts for all digital currency exchanges.

And the bill introduces specific anti-fraud measures, such as identity verification and mandatory telephone consultations for older customers to prevent financial exploitation.

The bill is a priority for AARP West Virginia this year.

“They’re targeting older people, and it’s generally fraudulent activities. So that’s why these safeguards need to be in place for licensure. Right now, these kiosks aren’t regulated at all in the state of West Virginia,” Miller said on MetroNews Talkline.

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“Raylee’s Law” is named for an 8-year-old girl who died of abuse and neglect in 2018 after she was withdrawn from school, eliminating contact with educators under mandatory reporting requirements. That bill has been introduced since 2019, but has never passed.

Raylee Browning’s father and two other adults were sentenced in 2023 to prison time in her death. The adults were accused of mistreating her and then ignoring her symptoms when she got sick before dying the day after Christmas in 2018. The cause of death was sepsis caused by a bacterial pneumonia infection.

The bill is a proposal to place a hold on removing students from public schools to homeschool environments if there is a pending child abuse or neglect investigation.

COMMENTARY by T.J. MEADOWS: Raylee’s Law protects kids

A version this year, House Bill 5669, came up late on a House Education Committee agenda and advanced earlier this week.

Bills typically have to be considered by the full House of Delegates on three consecutive days. Today would have been the first of those. But bills faced a deadline today to cross from one chamber to another. So a last-ditch option was to seek a vote to suspend rules and do all three readings today.

Delegate Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, sought that request this morning.

The motion needed more than a simple majority. It needed the support of 80 of the House’s 100 members.

The vote fell far short. The motion did receive a majority, 52-40, but that was way below the required count.

“This is another year where Raylee’s Law advances but doesn’t get across the finish line, and I find it truly pathetic,” Fluharty said later.

“We have the votes to pass it on an up and down vote on its merits. It passed out of committee, yet we waited too long to run it through committee and as a result we had to make a procedural motion that requires 80 votes, and that procedural motion did not get to the qualifying 80, yet it still had the majority of House members supporting it.”

He concluded, “Clearly the support is there for Raylee’s Law, and it’s bipartisan support. Yet it’s not important enough for the supermajority to make it a priority and get it through the process knowing damn well the timelines we’re on here when it comes to getting bills through the House before crossover day.”

Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady, R-Mason, has been a supporter of the legislation. She has expressed regret that a version of the bill has not made it to the Senate floor this year.

“I am a supporter of that bill,” Grady said this week on MetroNews Talkline. “And I think the notion that bill is anti-homeschool is entirely wrong. This is protecting children against abuse.”

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Who among us gets a little too excited about Mrs. Doubtfire?

West Virginia senators debated those points on Wednesday during a passage vote of Senate Bill 590, which criminalizes adult cabaret performances on public property or where minors could view them.

The legislation passed on a 31-2 vote. So now the bill goes to the House of Delegates.

The bill defines adult cabaret performances as events featuring topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators, appealing to prurient interests.

A first offense is a misdemeanor with penalties of 30 days to six months confinement, while a second offense is a felony with fines up to $25,000 and imprisonment of one to five years.

“I urge passage of this bill on behalf of the children who should not be exposed to this type of adult entertainment,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Tom Willis, R-Berkeley.

But who is to say what these terms mean, asked Senator Joey Garcia, D-Marion.

“What is a go-go dancer?” Garcia asked, meaning that he would like further clarification of how the law would define that.

Willis read from the dictionary: “A dancer, usually scantilly dressed, who performs rhythmic and often erotic dance routines.”

Willis said a key element of the legislation is a provision that the material would be intended to appeal to prurient interests.

“Fortunately, we have a third branch of government called the judiciary branch, which is here to help us interpret the laws that we passed. I think this is sufficiently objective for them to do so,” Willis said.

Garcia asked about how the terms might apply to situations like public concerts or plays.

For example, he suggested, Mrs. Doubtfire, which is about a divorced actor who is willing to go to any lengths to get his children back, even posing as a matronly Scottish housekeeper. Mrs. Doubtfire is best known as a Robin Williams movie, but there is a Broadway play with a national tour too.

“If someone was dressing as the opposite sex then this would apply to them, potentially?” Garcia said.

Willis returned again to the definition of prurient interests. “The question I would ask is, does Mrs. Doubtfire appeal to the prurient interest defined as having to expressing lustful ideas or desires or does Mrs. Doubtfire tend to illicit lust or lewdness?” Willis asked.

Garcia responded, “I’m not going to speak personally, but you never know for some people.”

He concluded by restating his concern that the bill has loose terms that could result in arrests. “Do people have to worry now about what they wear in public about how it’s going to make somebody else feel? About whether it’s going to turn somebody else on? I think that’s a dangerous road to go down.”

Senators also passed additional bills, including: 

SB 805, relating to abortion pill reversal.  The process involves taking the hormone progesterone for several weeks. There are conflicting reports about the safety and viability of a reversal, but the West Virginia bill would allow it.

Senate Bill 1083, which clarifies and expands the legal definition of “indecent exposure.”

It clarifies the definition of indecent exposure by requiring the exposure to be likely to cause affront or alarm to the person to whom he or she exposes himself or herself. It includes undressing in the opposite sex’s locker room within the crime of indecent exposure.

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The vote was 87-8 with four absences.

It’s crossover day, the deadline to pass bills from one chamber to another. Weeks before the session began, members of the Republican supermajority gathered to emphasize legislation focused on jobs and workforce development. One by one, they’ve been advancing those bills this session.

House Bill 4001 is an initiative called TEAM-WV, meant to create a competitive, statewide nonprofit to drive a cohesive strategy for site development, partnerships and business growth.

That is modeled after a program called JobsOhio. 

“TEAM-WV” is a non-stock, not-for-profit corporation for promoting economic development, job creation, job retention, job training and the recruitment of business.

“Teams West Virginia is a way that you can restructure the way economic development is done and moves us into the 21st century,” said Delegate Clay Riley, R-Harrison, vice chairman to the finance committee.

“So it allows us to move quicker. It doesn’t really change the incentives because those still have to come back approved by the government.”

Riley said the concept means “we can be more nimble, more effective when we’re really trying to diversify our economy. We’ve had a lot of successes and we should continue with those successes. But we really need diversification on these large scale capital projects and really to diversify our economy so we are sustainable for the long term.”

Delegate Bill Ridenour, R-Jefferson, said he has significant concerns about the legislation.

“I think that there’s some issues with our potential oversight as a legislative body and as well as with executive oversight,” Ridenour said.

He added, “I think we need to be more cautious on this.”

Delegate Eric Brooks, R-Raleigh, called the legislation consequential and said he had struggled with how to vote.

But he alluded to the common references to running government like a business. He said entrepreneurs have an advantage of thinking differently.

“If there’s a way to put the proverbial foot on the gas, I want to do that,” Brooks said, expressing support for the structure that the legislation would establish.

“Will this work? I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure,” Brooks conceded.

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The Culture Center, a jewel of West Virginia arts and history, has seen better days.

“The Culture Center is about to turn 50 years old. So this July will mark the opening of the building 50 years ago,” Tourism Secretary Chelsea Ruby told lawmakers as she began a tour requested by the House of Delegates, starting with the grand hall.

“This building is huge. I know all of you are here on a regular basis, and you probably are for the most part in this room or in the theater. But the building is about 180,000 square feet up to 240,000 if you’re looking at the theater space as well.”

And throughout there are problems that come with age.

The building is not adequately insulated and suffers from water intrusion in several areas, including roof leaks.

The existing mechanical system is at the end of its life. That includes the air handling units, heating water system, distribution pumps, distribution system and building control system. The electrical system is unreliable outdated and inadequate for the building’s usage needs.

The plumbing system needs a complete replacement. Now there are leaks, water damage and inoperable fixtures like water fountains.

House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, who took the tour of the Culture Center, said the need is clear to protect historic documents and to maintain the building as a beloved asset.

“This is an important building for the state of West Virginia. This houses some of the most priceless collections in our state’s history, and we need to make it a priority,” said Hanshaw, praising Gov. Patrick Morrisey and Tourism Director Chelsea Ruby for making the preservation a priority.

“We appreciate that commitment to preservation of our state’s history and our culture. This is a building that’s used by people of every stripe of society, from professional researchers, professional geologists, world class performers to young people at elementary schools who are coming here on field trips for the first time. This building needs to be a showcase.”

House Bill 5685 proposes a financial plan to fund major improvements, authorizing the Economic Development Authority to issue up to $150 million in revenue bonds to cover the costs of repairing, equipping and maintaining the facility.

The legislation establishes a dedicated Cultural Center Improvements Revenue Debt Service Fund.

The House of Delegates is set to vote on the bill on Wednesday, which represents the crossover day deadline to move legislation from one chamber to the other as the regular session nears its end.

“We do have on our calendar for passage a bill that’s intended to give the executive branch one option for how it might proceed with these restorations and repairs. That’s a bill to authorize a bonding mechanism to do long term financing for these repairs and structural upgrades,” Hanshaw said.

“That’ll be a decision totally for the executive. We just want to give the executive branch another option on how it might approach the very needed and very necessary repairs.”

West Virginians from all walks of life are taking an interest. Sara Busse, a Charleston resident, accompanied lawmakers on the tour. Her father, architect Howard Johe, was a partner at Silling Associates and designed the Culture Center.

“I was fortunate enough to be able to crawl around in the excavated area and climb the scaffolding and watch him talk to the experts about this building,” Busse said.

“Fifty years ago, this was top of the line, cream of the crop, the whole nine yards. Fifty years is a long time, and it’s really sad to me to see some of the things that have been let go. This is a jewel.”

Busse said the building clearly needs love and attention. “And the precious items in this building — I remember my dad saying to me that these are the most precious things of West Virginia history. They were really cognizant of that when they built this building.

“I hate to see what’s happened. It breaks my heart.”

She was gratified that lawmakers are taking an interest in getting the Culture Center back in shape.

“Seeing these legislators here and people from the administration here, wow, that was encouraging to me because it wasn’t a downer; everything’s falling apart,” Busse said. “It was: here’s what has to be fixed, here’s what has to be fixed. And that’s what is encouraging because I don’t think those conversations happened for a good 20 years.”

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“Unfortunately, time has run out in West Virginia for this year,” said the bill’s lead sponsor, Senator Chris Rose, R-Monongalia.

Compared to a powerful machine gun, the reason the legislation has sagged is a relatively sedate combination of the calendar and process.

The Senate Judiciary Committee discussed and advanced the bill on Monday afternoon. The bill already faced an uphill battle, up against a Wednesday deadline to move bills from one chamber to another — plus the bill had a second reference to another committee, finance.

When bills are passed out of committee, they also need to be received by the full chamber for further action. In this case, the bill was not received by the full Senate during a Monday evening floor session.

“At this point, theoretically, to get the bill out of the Senate in time you would have to suspend constitutional rules, which would take two-thirds of the Senate to do so. So I would say traditionally speaking this bill would be dead at this time,” Rose said following a floor session today.

The Public Defense and Provisioning Act, SB 1071, would establish a new Office of Public Defense managed by the State Police to oversee the sale and distribution of machine guns to eligible residents.

Under the proposal, the state would operate distribution stations at police headquarters and collect fees to fund the program’s administration.

The proposal outlines specific background check requirements and procedures for the legal transfer or return of the firearms.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Monday evening meeting, where the bill was discussed and seemingly advanced, ended in confusion — with Chairman Tom Willis calling for the committee to be at ease while he and some other members went into a back room for discussion.

Committee members who remained at the table noted that a quorum no longer seemed to be present and that, for the moment, no one was leading the meeting. One by one several members filed out. Adjournment occurred about 20 minutes later.

Today, Willis said the bill was reported out “and now it’s in the wheels of the Senate, so to speak. So it’s beyond my knowledge or control exactly where it is right now.”

Willis, R-Berkeley, said the bill had been important to him and others.

Whether the bill can be somehow brought back up, he said, “will be a question for the caucus to see what the political will is. Personally, I would like to see it become law. I think it would be nice to return West Virginia to the Second Amendment rights we had before 1986.”

Speaking at the end of today’s floor session, Senator Laura Wakim Chapman said it’s a shame the bill wound up nowhere.

“I’m disappointed,” said Chapman, R-Ohio. “The bill is dead and it was killed without transparency and without consensus.

“The decision was made in the dark, despite the fact that this bill has overwhelming support by this body. This is exactly why the public doesn’t trust politicians.”

At this point, Rose said, supporters of the machine gun bill will likely have to wait until next year.

“As a Second Amendment absolutist, it’s very important to me to see that all of our constitutional rights — especially the Second Amendment — are restored as much as we can,” he said.

Rose said the bill was an attempt to produce a carve-out of federal law, where West Virginia could sell machine guns to interested buyers following background checks and sign-off from federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“One, it restores constitutional rights without violating federal law. And two, there was definitely some interest from gun manufacturers to come to whichever state would pass this bill first. There were a couple of other states looking at it, so there was kind of a race to get it done and unfortunately time has run out in West Virginia for this year,” he said.

“But we’re already whipping the votes for next year and trying to get consensus behind it in both bodies, to address the concerns that came up this year with the bill.”

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The House has already passed a budget bill reflecting no tax cut at all. The governor introduced a proposed budget with a 5% personal income tax cut but aspires to a 10% cut. The Senate passed a bill reflecting a 10% tax cut offset somewhat by an increased tax on vape products.

What the House Finance Committee discussed on Tuesday morning was the version of the bill that the Senate passed over. Delegate Vernon Criss, chairman of the committee, was clear in remarks during the meeting and then afterward that the committee would vote on the bill later, Thursday, and that could include amendments.

“We’ve explained the Senate bill in a public hearing. It would be on the agenda on Thursday for markup and discussion and amendments,” said Criss, R-Wood.

He added, “An amendment can mean anything. That’s the committee process and the ability of the 25 people in the room to provide amendments that will be taken up before this body.”

A 5% tax cut is estimated to amount to about $125 million in state revenue. A 10% tax cut is estimated at $250 million.

The vape tax change is expected to raise an extra $22 million for the state.

Following this morning’s discussion, the lead Democrat on the finance committee, John Williams, said this process lays out priorities in black and white.

Williams noted that the legislation reviewed by the committee would make the tax cut retroactive to this past Jan. 1.

In contrast, he said, the finance committee passed out legislation on Friday that would make more money available for local school finances three years from now.

“It tells me that it’s not public schools that we’re invested in; it’s the wealthiest people who live in our state that we want to give a tax cut to,” said Williams, D-Monongalia.

In December, the state school board approved consolidations and closures of more than a dozen schools across six counties. The state board recently agreed to two more closures in Wayne County. The state also experienced a wave of school consolidations last year.

“It’s incredibly concerning,” Williams said. “I also don’t think we can afford to look at this in a vacuum by what solely reducing compared to our budget when we do have this school aid formula bill, we do have other tax cut bills out there, and we also know that federal funding in the next two to six years is going to decrease by nearly a billion dollars.”

Broadly, Williams said, “I was surprised we took up the 10 percent today, but then upon further reflection I suppose we could see some type of amendment at some point to take it down to the 5 percent because there is an active negotiation happening between the the governor, the Senate and the House — so maybe that’s what we’re looking at.”

Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, has pushed for weeks for a tax cut, saying his administration has identified a route to the 5% and asking to work with legislators for a way to get to 10 percent.

He repeated that priority during a news conference Monday morning.

“I still want to get to 10 percent. The Senate got to 10 percent. I’m telling you, I’m going to work with everyone, ok. I’m going to work with people. But it’s unacceptable to have 0 for the hard working men and women of our state,” Morrisey said Monday.

“When I travel all across West  Virginia, they say that. They say ‘How can you have a big surplus like that governor and not even try to return money back?’ We’re trying, but we need to House to step forward.”

The governor added, “We’ll sit down in a room and we’ll knock it out. I think we can make it happen.”

By Monday afternoon, the governor was spotted in a seat in the hallway outside the House Finance room.

Door: darkened https://t.co/r22AjyUU1a pic.twitter.com/rgnAvg4pfG

— Maddy Sperling (@maddysperl) March 2, 2026

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It’s a proposal that captured public imagination like a blast.

“I did not expect to be talking about automatic weapons and machine guns,” Senator Rollan Roberts, R-Raleigh, said on Radio Roundtable on WJLS AM. “That one surprised me.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee discussed and advanced the bill on Monday afternoon. By Wednesday, the Legislature is subject to a deadline for moving bills from one chamber to another, so this could be sliding through just under the wire.

The justification of the proposal is to ensure armament parity between the general public and modern military forces to ensure state defense.

Much of text of SB 1071 cites Second Amendment rights and federal loopholes to allow states to authorize the transfer of fully automatic weapons.

“Before 1986 West Virginians could purchase machine guns freely. You could order them from the Sears catalog, you could buy them from the store,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Tom Willis, R-Berkeley, said after an evening floor session.

“We’re trying to get back to that state of being, which we think is the proper state for the Second Amendment, so that we’ve got a right to protect ourselves from tyranny from the government.”

Willis continued by acknowledging friction with federal law.

“This is a novel legal concept under federal law so I understand there’s some controversy about it, but it’s a loophole created in the federal law,” Willis said. “So we’re pushing it forward so we can have full freedom with our Second Amendment rights in West Virginia.”

The bill, called the the Public Defense and Provisioning Act, would establish a new Office of Public Defense managed by the State Police to oversee the sale and distribution of machine guns to eligible residents.

Under the proposal, the state would operate distribution stations at police headquarters and collect fees to fund the program’s administration.

The proposal outlines specific background check requirements and procedures for the legal transfer or return of the firearms.

“The State Police will have an oversight role, they’ll have rule-making authority to establish rules. A person applying to buy a machine gun would still have to go through the ATF application process and be approved at the federal level as well,” Willis said.

Lonnie Faircloth, president of the West Virginia Troopers Association, testified briefly before the committee and said he has misgivings.

“Personally, I have concerns with it just because of the fact that we’re transferring to a private citizen and we’re now possibly making them a felon. Same with us possibly doing the same,” Faircloth said.

The committee also took testimony from Alex Shay, who described himself as volunteer state director for Gun Owners of America.

“The state does have the authority to transfer, sell or buy,” Shay told lawmakers.

The Gun Owners of America organization posted a photo on social media over the weekend with Gov. Patrick Morrisey and thanked him for his support.

Senator Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, has serious doubts about this premise. “The only problem with that is that it’s against federal law to do so,” Weld said on MetroNews Talkline.

“For some reason this bill purports that it has found some loophole that the NRA or the Citizens Defense League has not found nor anyone else has found and require that our State Police become arms dealers and sell machine guns to citizens.”

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“Raylee’s Law” is named for an 8-year-old girl who died of abuse and neglect in 2018 after she was withdrawn from school, eliminating contact with educators under mandatory reporting requirements. That bill has been introduced since 2019, but has never passed.

This year, with the 60-day legislative session coming closer to the end, there is a full-court press.

In the Senate, Democrat Joey Garcia of Marion County attempted a discharge motion to pull the bill out of the health committee. The Senate majority voted to table his motion, thwarting the attempt.

That led Garcia to invoke a state constitutional option to have bills read aloud in their entirety. In short, that gums up the works and it’s a method to apply leverage.

“We can’t just give lip service. We can’t just get up and give a speech. We’ve got to do something about this, and that’s what we’re trying to make happen,” said Garcia, D-Marion. “If it saves one life, that’s enough. That’s enough for me.”

In the House of Delegates, supporters of Raylee’s Law managed to get a version of the bill onto the House Education Committee agenda today, which generally would have been past the point of a bill having any hope of passing on deadline.

Delegates on the House Education Committee debated the bill for about an hour before agreeing to pass it out. To do so, they suspended a House rule that typically requires having a bill discussed in a committee one day and up for passage the next. Chairman Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, also said he would ask to drop a second reference to Judiciary.

So Raylee’s Law remains viable, up against inertia of the Crossover Day deadline on Wednesday.

Raylee Browning’s father and two other adults were sentenced in 2023 to prison time in her death. The adults were accused of mistreating her and then ignoring her symptoms when she got sick before dying the day after Christmas in 2018. The cause of death was sepsis caused by a bacterial pneumonia infection.

After the House Education Committee meeting today, lead sponsor Shawn Fluharty said the legislation is worth all the effort.

“This is how government should work. This is a bipartisan, biproduct of work that has gone on for a number of years. We still have some procedural matters. My understanding is that we will, and for the first time we will get an up and down vote on Raylee’s Law on the House floor as a standalone bill,” said Fluharty, D-Ohio.

Fluharty said the education committee took up the bill after delegates had considered going a different route, which would have meant an attempt to amend the policy into another bill.

Speaking of House leaders, Fluharty said, “I believe the understanding was they would rather see this as a standalone bill than have it be part of another piece of legislation.

“The intent here is clear: It’s to protect children. So I’m glad to see we actually put the work in in a bipartisan manner through the committee structure and not just amendments.”

The effort did receive some pushback. In front of the education committee, the president of the West Virginia Home Educators Association told delegates the policy amounts to “gross overreach on parental choice.”

Roy Ramey suggested that some families go through a long, thoughtful, difficult process before deciding to pull their children out of public schools and then homeschool. In some cases, Ramey said, the students may be the target of bullying.

He envisioned a scenario where school personnel might raise concerns — perhaps baselessly — about a transfer to homeschool status, delaying such a move. He said tragedies reflect failures by child protective services, not a gap in homeschool regulations

“This bill has gross overreach on parental choice and the decisions that parents have on the direction of the education of their children,” he said.

In the Senate, a different coalition of lawmakers attempted to move that chamber’s version of Raylee’s Law to the floor.

Garcia said the proposal deserved a debate and that’s what led him to rise time after time to ask for bills to be read aloud. That turned the floor session, already long, into a slog.

“I really don’t like the idea of reading bills. It is a constitutional right that each senator does have, and it’s to be used only in the most extreme circumstances and this fits that for me. The fact that we couldn’t even get a debate — I couldn’t even get out why it’s important to have a discharge motion,” he told reporters during a break.

“If people want to vote it down, OK. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do, but at least we have that debate and we hear that in the public as far as why is this a good bill or not a good bill — but to stifle that debate, I won’t accept that.”

Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady also supports the bill and wanted it to receive consideration. Grady, speaking to reporters, said the bill is important because it targets child abusers.

“It is just a protection measure for kids who are being abused,” said Grady, R-Mason.

“I’m a public school teacher also, and I see situations where kids are removed and we have no idea where they went. Some of them move out of state. CPS is supposed to continue investigations but guess what — they can’t find them sometimes if they move out of state.”

She continued, “We have parents rights and I’m all for that, but we also have the rights of the child. And we have to look out for the child and make sure their rights are protected as well.”

If the bill can just make it to the floor for all senators to vote on it, Grady thinks it has a good chance of passing.

“I really think if we get the bill to the floor that we have the support to pass it. I really do. I’ve done the numbers in my head. I think we have the votes to pass it. It’s just getting it to the floor for a vote.”

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The final-straw language in Goodwin’s order came in the specific case of Miguel Antonio Dominguez Izaguirre, a Honduran national held in immigration detention without a bond hearing. Goodwin noted that multiple judges in the district have already declared these specific detention practices unconstitutional.

The judge threatened contempt proceedings and sanctions if the government continues to ignore the binding legal rulings in future cases. He wrote that his order “serves as explicit notice to all officials — state and federal — involved in the detention of individuals whose cases come before this court.”

He wrote that “Continued detention without individualized custody determinations, after this court’s repeated holdings that such detention violates the Fifth Amendment, will result in legal consequences.

“For state jail officials, those consequences include personal civil liability without qualified immunity protection. For federal officials, those consequences include exercise of this court’s full inherent authority to enforce constitutional compliance including contempt.”

In a footnote, the judge noted that the South Central Regional Jail in Charleston “accepts physical custody of the immigrant petitioners under circumstances and practices already declared unconstitutional by this court and judges in this district.

“Jail officials act pursuant to state law, and under color of state law, are depriving each of these petitioners their right to liberty, a clearly established constitutional right. After this court’s and this district’s multitude of rulings, state officials are clearly on notice, and the petitioners’ liberty interests have clearly been established.”

A wave of cases in recent weeks before judges in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia have focused on people seized in immigration sweeps contesting the basis of their arrests and subsequent incarceration.

These cases have typically involved people who first entered the United States unlawfully and then wound up at processing centers, where they were released under conditions that their immigration status would be reviewed. Many of the people in these cases have declared asylum because of upheaval in their home countries.

Being in the United States without authorization is generally a civil violation, not a crime, and violation of immigration law is handled by civil immigration courts, not criminal courts.

Lawyers for the people in these cases contend that they have cooperated with the immigration system and that judges in that system should make final determinations of status.

Instead, they have been caught up in West Virginia highway sweeps, arrested and sent to jail without being charged with a criminal offense. So their lawyers have been contesting the grounds of their recent West Virginia arrests and incarcerations.

The judges have consistently concluded that the people, often detained after minor traffic stops, lacked histories of violence and were frequently held without warrants or proper hearings. In case after case, the judges have ordered the people set free from West Virginia jails.

Despite the consistent rulings, Goodwin wrote last week that the case of Miguel Antonio Dominguez Izaguirre was one of 17 assigned to the court just last week.

“How can that be?” Goodwin asked, noting that multiple rulings by other judges in the district have consistently held that the government’s position on mandatory detention is contrary to established law.

Yet on Feb. 12, 14, 17, 18, 21 and 22, the judge wrote, the government arrested noncitizens already in the interior of the United States. “Today, the Government continues to wrongfully detain those petitioners without due process,” Goodwin wrote.

“Even now the Government incredulously asserts that the federal district courts do not have jurisdiction, that petitioners cannot raise due process violations, and that the government has authority to mandatorily and indefinitely detain noncitizens in the local jail. The Government is wrong.”

This is a view shared by other judges in the Southern District of West Virginia.

That includes Judge Irene Berger, who wrote in a recent case that “counsel for the Respondents indicated, in response to the Court’s inquiry, that the Respondents intend to continue to arrest and detain people in this district under the same circumstances and based on the same legal justifications that all four district judges to address the matter have found to be illegal and unconstitutional.

“The Court has previously prohibited re-arrest and detention absent a significant change in circumstances to justify detention. The Court concurs with the Petitioners that the language previously used provides inadequate protection due to the Respondents’ lack of respect for the law.”

MORE: In man’s immigration arrest, federal officials also cited 2009 marijuana rap. The problem? He was 4 years old

The particular case before Goodwin involved Miguel Antonio Dominguez Izaguirre, who entered the United States in 2016 and currently lives in Cana, Va., with his two children who are both United States citizens.

This past Valentine’s Day, he  was arrested and detained by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers while traveling near Summersville, Nicholas County. Following the arrest, he continued to be held in South Central Regional Jail in Charleston.

“Despite facing no criminal charge, Petitioner sits in the local jail with no hearing to determine his custody. There is no evidence in the record that Petitioner is a danger to the community or a flight risk, and there is sufficient evidence that he has community ties. Still, he has been afforded no hearing. This violates his due process rights,” Goodwin wrote.

As in the other cases, the judge ordered Izaguirre to be released.

Goodwin, a Bill Clinton appointee who has served on the federal bench since 1995, wrote in a footnote that the assistant federal prosecutors who have come before the court are not to be blamed.

“I note that counsel for the Government has been responsive and professional before this court. In the Government’s briefing it is clear to me that the attorneys are aware of the law of this district and how it affects the Government’s argument,” Goodwin wrote.

“The problem lies in the attorneys’ clients, federal government actors, who have offered no evidence that they have seen or even care about the legal rulings of this district. The disregard for the law shames every hard working public servant who toils for the benefit of the country and its people.”

But he wrote that once a federal court has declared particular conduct unconstitutional, the court possesses equitable authority to prevent the same defendants from engaging in the same unconstitutional conduct again.

“Government officials — federal and state—subject to this court’s jurisdiction are required to conform their conduct to this court’s constitutional rulings,” he wrote. “This court possesses inherent authority to enforce its constitutional determinations and will not permit systematic violations to continue while awaiting appellate resolution.”

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In reviewing his situation, U.S. District Judge Irene Berger said there has been no evidence that Rodriguez has a history of violence or serious criminal convictions, that he poses a risk of not cooperating with the immigration system, that he is a danger to the community or that he has ever been involved in gang activity.

Then the judge’s assessment took a twist. Berger noted that federal authorities had attached documentation of a 2009 conviction for marijuana possession.

That did not add up, the judge wrote. “The Petitioner,” she wrote, meaning Rodriguez, “was four years old in 2009.”

The most likely cause of the error, Berger concluded, was that the document supplied by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement referred to a different person who was convicted but who had the same name. This mistake occurred “despite the differences in birthdate, birthplace, parents’ names, and immigration status.”

The judge’s footnote concluded, “This sloppiness further validates the Court’s concerns about the procedures utilized by the Respondents depriving people present in the United States of their liberty.”

The arrest was one of 650 from January called “Operation Country Roads, where ICE said agents “had arrested a convicted child sex abuser, a criminal convicted of drug possession charges, and many others during the operation.”

The federal agency said, “Together, federal, state and local law enforcement officials identified and arrested hundreds of illegal aliens who present dangers to national security and risks to public safety, as well as those who entered the United States illegally or have otherwise undermined the integrity of U.S. immigration laws and border control efforts.”

The aftershock has resulted in a wave of cases in recent weeks before judges in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia with people seized in immigration sweeps contesting the basis of their arrests and subsequent incarceration.

These cases have typically involved people who first entered the United States unlawfully and then wound up at processing centers, where they were released under conditions that their immigration status would be reviewed. Many of the people in these cases have declared asylum because of upheaval in their home countries.

Lawyers for the people in these cases contend that they have cooperated with the immigration system and that judges in that system should make final determinations of status.

Instead, they have been caught up in West Virginia highway sweeps, arrested and sent to jail without being charged with a criminal offense. So their lawyers have been contesting the grounds of their recent West Virginia arrests and incarcerations.

The judges have consistently concluded that the people, often detained after minor traffic stops, lacked histories of violence and were frequently held without warrants or proper hearings. In case after case, the judges have ordered the people set free from West Virginia jails.

Last week, Berger had three such cases. This week, there is another one before Judge Thomas Johnston.

The judges, including Berger, have sometimes called out sloppiness by federal authorities in their orders.

Beyond the Eduardo Tinajero Rodriguez case, Berger called out several other instances of procedural inaccuracies, evidentiary failures and a lack of professional standards.

An earlier case before Judge Berger involved Rasul Umarov, a citizen of Russia, who entered the United States at a port of entry in 2022. He filed a timely asylum application in 2023, based on persecution in the Russian Federation, according to the court record.

Umarov gained legal employment authorization and maintains gainful employment. He is married and has a 10-month-old daughter, who is a United States citizen. He has no criminal record and is accused of no criminal conduct, the judge wrote.

He was arrested on Jan. 16 by officers conducting a commercial traffic stop on I-77 near the Ghent Toll Plaza. Umarov was arrested and taken to South Central Regional Jail.

The judge outlined that U.S. attorneys took the position that they had no knowledge of the man’s history, arrest, or status beyond boilerplate documents supplied by ICE.

“The United States refused to provide any factual information regarding the ‘procedures’ used to detain Mr. Umarov beyond the form produced by ICE following his arrest,” Berger wrote.

“The risk of an erroneous deprivation of liberty when agents are given the power to indefinitely detain people with only the information garnered during a traffic stop on the side of the interstate is enormous, and enormously troubling.”

A case before U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers focused on Nurdin Shailookul Uulu, a native of Kyrgyzstan, who had presented at a port of entry in 2023 and was released into the United States. He has an individual hearing before an immigration court in California on April 7, 2027.

He had been living in California, paid taxes, kept in compliance with immigration court requirements and had work authorization as a commercial truck driver, according to the court record.

Uulu was stopped for an “expired fuel tax” at a weigh station in Hurricane, Putnam County, on Jan. 16 and arrested for “being illegally present in the U.S.”

Chambers, in ordering Uulu to be released from jail in West Virginia, also said sloppiness in the case was troubling. A lack of attention to detail is likely to indicate bigger and broader problems, the judge wrote in a footnote.

Specifically, the judge pointed toward U.S. Homeland Security written descriptions of Uulu’s traffic stop and arrest, which said “the subjects were placed under arrest” when there is only one subject, Uulu.

Beyond the pronoun agreement error, the judge observed, the document references two unrelated individuals as the petitioners

“The high volume of individuals being arrested, detained, and petitioning for release is clearly leading to mistakes which is frustrating given the gravity and nature of the fundamental liberty interest that is at stake,” Chambers wrote.

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The tax cut is being considered as metallurgical coal typically used in steel making faces challenging market forces.

Generally, the end of last week represented a legislative deadline to move bills out of committee. The House Finance Committee took up the coal tax legislation as an originating bill, meaning it didn’t yet have a number and was not available for the public to view online.

“What we’re simply doing here is saying we’ve got a legitimate rate that deals with the budget and, in fact, helps the coal industry — and we’re going to do that a little bit a time so it protects the budget while continuing to help the coal industry,” said Delegate Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer.

Current law has a 5% severance tax on the gross value of metallurgical coal. This bill, as it was constructed when the committee first took it up, would have had a stepdown to 4.5% in fiscal 2026, 4% in 2027 and 3.5% in 2028 — but then back up to 5% after 2031.

In dollars, the first year amounts to a roughly $15 million tax cut for metallurgical coal producers. Overall state revenue from severance taxes on metallurgical coal amounts to about $150 million a year, the committee agreed.

The five‑year step‑down period could amount to about $180 million in forgone severance tax on metallurgical coal.

But the committee approved an amendment removing the automatic increase back to 5% in 2031. Instead, the rate stays at the lower level unless a future legislature changes it by new law.

“To lower a tax and raise a tax in the same bill is an odd situation. If we’re going to lower it, let’s lower it and if the time comes and we need more money and that’s where we’re going to get it then this legislature has every opportunity to do that,” said Gearheart, who sponsored the amendment.

The tax cut is meant to provide temporary relief to the met coal industry during a difficult market period.

“I would characterize that is being very generous and very supportive,” Chris Hamilton, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, told the finance committee.

“I asked the governor to call an immediate cessation of all severance taxes on coal, both thermal and metallurgical coal, two weeks ago because of the headwinds and the hardship and all the damage that’s been done to this industry, both thermal and met over the past decade or so.”

Metallurgical coal is primarily used to produce coke, an essential fuel and carbon source for manufacturing steel in blast furnaces. Demand for that kind of coal has been stable compared to others, particularly internationally, but the sector has faced headwinds.

China has maintained high tariffs on U.S. metallurgical coal, significantly disrupting trade flows. The economic retaliation followed U.S. trade actions, causing a sharp decline in U.S. coal exports to China.

“It’s not just on the export where we find these these strong headwinds working against us with all the global trade and and tariffs and everything else, but we’re competing for a very for a shrinking domestic steel making market as well,” Hamilton said.

In mid-February, Greenbrier Minerals notified Workforce West Virginia of its decision to conduct a mass layoff at its facility in Lorado, affecting 530 employees.

Overall, Hamilton said, about 10 mines and about 1000 miners have experienced furloughs because of the current economic situation.

“We find ourselves here today, hitting such tremendous headwinds against our metallurgical coals,” Hamilton told the committee.

Delegate Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, expressed full support for the tax cut bill. “I want to help,” he said.

But Hornbuckle was critical of the Trump administration’s tariff regime and the retaliation that has resulted from countries like China.

“Their tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs have caused us a lot of issues — and it cost a lot of West Virginia jobs,” he said.

“That’s why I’m standing here today to help our coal miners first, coal producers, coal owners and the industry to pick up what this federal administration has done.”

Delegate Ray Canterbury, R-Greenbrier, countered, “If the tariff strategy works effectively, we may end up reshoring our steel industry and then our coal industry will be very strong going forward because they’ll be positioned to take advantage of that.”

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“I support this bill, and I will continue to support this bill,” said Delegate Clay Riley, vice chairman of the House Finance Committee, although he said more work might need to continue on the specifics.

HB 5453 is a significant revision of the current public school funding formula to make it simpler, more transparent and more aligned with student needs — especially special education — while moving away from the current step‑based, multi‑schedule formula.

In December, the state school board approved consolidations and closures of more than a dozen schools across six counties. The state board recently agreed to two more closures in Wayne County. The state also experienced a wave of school consolidations last year.

The House Finance committee discussed and advanced a revised version of  the legislation on Friday afternoon.

“We’re trying to make the formula simpler to figure out so you can calculate it based on a per pupil basis rather than on a formula,” said Delegate Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, the lead sponsor of the bill.

Under the most recent version of the bill,  the current school funding aid formula would be used for the coming three academic years, until 2029.

Starting with 2029-2030, all county school boards would be funded by block grants of $6,100 per enrolled student. County boards that have fewer than 1,200 enrolled pupils per county would be funded at the minimum level of 1,200 students.

Funding for public charter schools, starting in 2029 and after that, would be $8,600 per student. The minimum student population level wouldn’t apply.

The bill establishes three tiers for additional funding for special needs students. And there are more categories of supplemental funding for areas like transportation, vocational and technical education centers, alternative learning centers and pilot programs.

“While this might not be the perfect solution, it’s a step forward,” said House Education Chairman Joe Statler, R-Monongalia. “And that’s what we’re going to have to do is step forward over the next three years.”

He added, “Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, right now going on in this state, we’re taking down systems because we are not funding them with enough money from the state and the federal to take care of the special education that’s going on.”

Gov. Patrick Morrisey, speaking at a press conference last week, expressed financial caution about additional state support for schools right now.

“You know, those issues didn’t get brought to us at the budget. It’s kind of hard to come up with that now, but I’ll look at everything and I want to make sure we put our kids first,” Morrisey said in response to a question by West Virginia Watch.

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Kump, a Republican, served in the House from 2010 to 2014, again from 2018 to 2020 and finally 2022 to the present. He had announced plans to run again in the coming electoral cycle.

“As a battle-tested and liberty minded Christian and Constitutional Conservative, my consecrated action principles of good governance remains solid and steadfast,” he wrote to supporters in January.

He had been serving in the ongoing legislative session, but had been absent in recent weeks.

The daily prayer in the House of Delegates this past Wednesday included an expression of concern for Kump: “A special prayer for Delegate Larry Kump. Lord, you know where he is in the hospital now, and I pray right now that you would send your angels there to touch him, to be with him.”

Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced Kump’s death on social media, calling Kump “a devoted public servant who dedicated many years of his life to improving West Virginia.

“Delegate Kump served with a deep commitment to the principles he believed would strengthen our communities and protect our freedoms.

“On behalf of the First Lady and myself, we extend our condolences to Larry’s family, friends, former colleagues, and all those who had the privilege of knowing and serving alongside him. His legacy of service and his love for our state will never be forgotten.”

Secretary of State Kris Warner also posted condolences to Kump’s family. “Larry was a conservative Christian and a true Mountaineer! He will be sadly missed by his friends and colleagues,” Warner posted.

The West Virginia Republican Party described sorrow over Kump’s death.

“Larry was a principled conservative, a patriot, and a man who never backed down from defending the values he believed in,” said West Virginia GOP Chairman Josh Holstein, who served with Kump in the House of Delegates.

“Larry served with conviction and always put his constituents first. His dedication to limited government, individual liberty, and the people of Berkeley County defined his time in office and he will be missed by his colleagues and constituents.”

The West Virginia Democratic Party also put out a statement to offer condolences, saying Kump’s work reflected a lifelong commitment to accountability, public policy, and the effective administration of government.

“Delegate Larry Kump devoted his life to his family, his community, and to his state. He brought experience, independence and thoughtfulness to his role, and he never lost sight of the people he served,” said Mike Pushkin, the Democratic Party chairman who is also a delegate from Kanawha County.

Kump was known for his turns of phrase, for example kicking off his comments on the House floor with “Great googly moogly” for emphasis. He often described his adoration for his “beloved and bodacious wife Cheryl.”

He regularly concluded interactions and written communications this way: “Meanwhile, and for sure and for certain, may God bless you all real good!”

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The Senate Judiciary Committee discussed and advanced each of the bills on Friday. Lawmakers are coming up on a deadline at midweek to move bills to the opposite chamber, so these were among the last bills to be pushed out of Senate committees.

The first, expanding the crime of indecent exposure, was rolled out from the Judiciary Committee as an originating bill, so it didn’t have a number or a way to read it online.

It clarifies the definition of indecent exposure by requiring the exposure to be likely to cause affront or alarm to the person to whom he or she exposes himself or herself. It includes undressing in the opposite sex’s locker room within the crime of indecent exposure.

The rationale for the bill wasn’t always crystal clear. Although it could be taken as policy affecting transgender people, no one explicitly said so. Senators did talk in terms of “biological males” being in women’s locker rooms.

At one point Judiciary Tom Willis asked the committee counsel, “In your research on this bill, are you aware of any instances in the state of West Virginia where biological males have gone into female locker rooms over the past few years?”

The committee attorney could not say directly if specific instances have occurred, but said there could be some circumstantial evidence.

Willis, who is a candidate for U.S. Senate, followed up: “Did your research include any of the instances where biological adult males were going into female locker rooms in YMCAs locations around the state and undressing?”

The committee attorney did not see those instances.

In another instance,  Willis asked if “there are municipalities around the state that have made it legal for a person who claims to be of the opposite gender from their biological gender to enter into locker rooms.”

The committee attorney again had not heard that but conceded that the chairman might be better acquainted with such situations.

Senators spent more than an hour discussing how the bill might work in practical terms.

Senator Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, said much of the proposed phrasing is vague yet carries criminal prosecution consequences: “Undresses. What does that mean? Does that mean I just took off my hoodie? Does that mean that I completely undressed?

“It could sweep in completely lawful and legal activity. Do I think it’s appropriate for a biological male to be changing in a women’s locker room? Absolutely not. But they’re now going to be held under the indecent exposure statute for being in there and doing nothing but taking off their sweatshirt.”

Weld later gave a specific example.

“So a biological male is in a women’s locker room, takes off the sweatshirt, takes off the T-shirt, and there he stands wearing a women’s sports bra with a big hairy chest, and so that might cause some affront or alarm at a woman who isn’t used to seeing somebody in a sports bra with a hairy chest and back in the locker room with her,” Weld said.

“So I mean that would, again, could sweep the illegal act and make it illegal when they have not exposed themselves.”

Although the bill centered on indecent exposure, some senators asked why a man would be in a women’s locker room in the first place. They suggested that should be the focus.

“I’m thinking just as a common sense thing, you know, just because a biological man enters a locker room, why does he that person has to be undressing?” said Senator Scott Fuller, R-Wayne.

“He is being able to watch females undress. So I mean, that would be a crime, right? Is that not? I mean, it’s more than just him exposing himself and but it’s also voyeurism.”

Committee counsel said that scenario is probably covered elsewhere in criminal code.

“But I thought the intent of this bill was to keep them out of the locker room. No?” Fuller said. “What is the intent of this bill?”

Senator Anne Charnock, R-Kanawha, agreed that men should not be in women’s locker rooms in the first place: “If a guy is in a women’s locker room, isn’t he trespassing?” Charnock asked.

The committee counsel was not sure.

Charnock continued, “So if I’m in the female locker room and a man walks in, I don’t care if he’s undressing or not. I don’t want him in there.

“So he’s not supposed to be there. There’s got to be something other than indecent exposure. He’s not supposed to be there whether his clothes are on or clothes are off.”

Senator Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, supported the bill but did want assurances that the coaches of girls teams would not be swept up somehow in the legislation.

“You know, a coach stepping in to the with his team, throws his jacket off, praising them or give them a butt chewing for their mistakes on the court. Want to make sure that that’s not placing that coach at risk,” Tarr said.

“But on the other side of it is that you have person who’s coming in and that it’s overt, whether it’s the head coach, assistant coach, parent or whatever that comes in and makes those females uncomfortable for how they’re undressing.”

Tarr said the legislation should reflect intent, “and I just want to make sure we’re protecting the coach that’s behaving and making sure we are penalizing those that are not.”

Despite all the questions, the committee voted 10-3 to advance the bill to the floor.

Weld suggested it will pass and then “drown under its own weight” in the House of Delegates.

“Well, now we’ve got an unconstitutional bill,” he said, “so I’m sure this will go to the House of Delegates, where hopefully — they seem pretty rational — they’ll fix the issue and pass an actual bill that actually protects somebody and is constitutional.”

Adult cabaret

Right after that, the senators took up a committee substitute for Senate Bill 590, which criminalizes adult cabaret performances on public property or where minors could view them.

The bill defines adult cabaret performances as events featuring topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators, appealing to prurient interests.

A first offense is a misdemeanor with penalties of 30 days to six months confinement, while a second offense is a felony with fines up to $25,000 and imprisonment of one to five years.

As with the earlier bill, there were some questions about terms and how they would apply.

“I’ve got some questions,” said Senator Joey Garcia, R-Marion. “What is a go-go dancer?”

The term is not defined in the legislation, said the committee counsel.

Garcia asked, “What about the Rockettes? See those at the Macy’s Day Parade on television. What if they came to West Virginia? — if they came to, let’s say, the WVU alumni parade. Would that be something that would be impermissible?”

The committee attorney concluded, “I don’t know if that’s a sexually charged performance that would appeal to the prurient interest.”

Garcia said the legislation is too loose with its terms and that people could be charged under a broad set of circumstances. “I don’t think this is a good bill. I think there’s a lot of other things we could be using our time on here,” he said.

On a voice vote, the majority of the committee voted to send the adult cabaret bill to the full Senate for consideration.

The post Stretch run in Senate: legislation covering disrobing in opposite sex locker rooms and ‘adult cabaret’ appeared first on WV MetroNews.

The subject was a bill already passed by the House of Delegates, HB 4026, but senators earlier took the original House bill and poured in their own preferred legislation. So back to the House it goes.

The bill passed the Senate today on a 32-2 vote, with Republican Eric Tarr and Democrat Mike Woelfel voting no.

The long title is “Relating to expanding the requirements for integrated resource plans utility companies must file with the Public Service Commission.” Sexy, right? Yet senators found a way to fight for an hour.

The main point of contention is a goal for coal-fired power plants would need to be operating at 69% capacity. That’s been guidance for a few years from the state Public Service Commission, but the regulator has offered latitude. This would put it in state law.

“What this does is even that playing field for West Virginia’s coal-fired generation to give them that chance to be competitive,” said Senate Energy Chairman Chris Rose, R-Monongalia.

Tarr and Woelfel, each in their own ways, questioned whether the provision would run counter to market forces and actually raise costs for ratepayers.

“I was really hoping that I could come in here and vote for a bill that I knew when I pushed the button on it that rates would come down in West Virginia. I’m still not there,” said Tarr, R-Putnam.

Tarr said he can’t see how the legislation would actually reduce power rates for neighbors and potential businesses locating in  the state.

“This is risky. I want to see our coal miners to work; I really do,” he said. “But you can’t artificially create a market. Markets drive it.”

Woelfel, a Democrat from Cabell County, said the legislation abandons free market principles.

“If you raise the cost of energy, which this bill will do, you are going to pass that on to the people that live here and work here. That’s the only way it goes,” Woelfel said.

“This is a bad bill for the people of our state. They will bear the brunt and coal producers will reap the benefit.”

Senator Brian Helton, R-Fayette, offered many of the comments in favor of the bill.

“Voting against this bill is a vote against coal. A vote against this bill is a vote against thousands of jobs here in West Virginia,” Helton said. “It’s a vote to allow our monopolistic utilities to dictate how they want to profit.”

He continued, “This vote today is an important vote because we want to bring back our coal communities to life. We want to see West Virginia, southern West Virginia in this case, become great again.”

Rose, the energy chairman, offered similar remarks, saying the deck has been stacked against West Virginia coal-fired power plants by national energy policy, regulators and the decision-makers who operate the regional grid.

“There is a war on coal going on in this state and this country, whether the people want to hear that or not,” Rose said. “The war on coal is the decades and decades of regulatory burden that has put coal at a disadvantage in what is an illusion of an energy-free market that does not exist.”

The post Senators debate bill about coal-fired power plant capacity and then pass it overwhelmingly appeared first on WV MetroNews.

SB657, creating Cohen Craddock Student Athlete Safety Act, was discussed and advanced by the Senate Finance Committee today.

A similar bill was considered last year but was not passed into law. Last year’s legislation would have required all youth football players in West Virginia to wear a soft-shell cover such as Guardian Caps on their helmets for organized practice.

“I had major reservations under this bill previously,” said Senator Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell. “This bill is now righteous, and we’re going to be able to do some good with it.”

This year’s bill makes the use of those helmets permissive, so schools could opt in. The bill also calls for examination of concussion protocol, education and training to prevent concussions — the development of a Concussion Education Prevention and Response Plan.

The bill also establishes the Cohen Craddock Memorial Grant Program to help with funding for football safety equipment that reduces concussions.

“This bill is significantly different and better than the version we had last year,” said Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady. “It adds in an educational aspect. Education in prevention, trying to prevent and reduce concussions, has proven to be the number one impacter on protecting kids.”

The committee also discussed and advanced The Women’s Collegiate Sports Protection Act, SB 502.

Overall, the bill aims to shield collegiate women’s sports from market volatility and shifting funding priorities through a blend of private investment and whatever might be available through administrative savings.

The bill proposes the creation of permanent endowment funds where the principal remains untouched, aiming to build a consistent revenue stream for scholarships, coaching, and facilities.

Earlier version of the bill indicated the state would offer tax credits to private donors but that was removed to make the bill revenue neutral.

Earnings from a women’s athletics endowment may be used only for scholarships, coaching and training staff, equipment, facilities, travel, and other expenses directly related to women’s collegiate Olympic sports programs.

West Virginia University, in a statement, expressed support for the bill, “which creates an optional endowment fund and is an important next step in helping to ensure women’s collegiate Olympic sports programs are available to our student-athletes in the rapidly changing NIL landscape.

“Last year, the Legislature passed two bills to support college athletics in West Virginia — the NIL Protection Act and the Athletics Nonprofit Act. Like those bills, SB 502 will help WVU continue to compete.”

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The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced it has filed new federal lawsuits against five states — Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey — for what it called failure to produce their full voter registration lists upon request.

That brings the Justice Department’s nationwide total to 29 states and the District of Columbia.

“Accurate, well-maintained voter rolls are a requisite for the election integrity that the American people deserve,” Attorney General Pam Bondi stated in an announcement about the lawsuits.

“This latest series of litigation underscores that This Department of Justice is fulfilling its duty to ensure transparency, voter roll maintenance, and secure elections across the country.”

This has been an ongoing issue since West Virginia’s Secretary of State, Kris Warner has twice said no, citing state law and personal voter information.

“West Virginians entrust me with their sensitive personal information. Turning it over to the federal government, which is contrary to state law, will simply not happen,” Warner said earlier this month.

“State law is clear: voter lists are available in a redacted format from my office, but I’ll not be turning over any West Virginian’s protected information.”

The West Virginia Secretary of State’s office said the press release from DOJ was the first inkling of a lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.

“This is the first we’ve seen of a lawsuit naming the state of West Virginia.  We have not been served,” said Mike Queen, deputy secretary of state and spokesman for the West Virginia office.

“Regardless, I think Secretary Warner’s comments to the DOJ were pretty clear.  Bring it on!  The federal government is not going to get any personal information on West Virginia voters as long as Kris Warner is Secretary of State.”

The federal government has been seeking full voter registration lists including names, addresses, birthdates, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers.

Letters have gone to states including Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Many states have refused to comply, arguing that the request exceeds federal authority over elections and compromises voter privacy.

“There is absolutely zero reason for the federal government to seize any state’s voter rolls, which include highly sensitive personal information including voters’ Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other sensitive identifiers,” said Julie Archer, director of democracy programs for West Virginia Citizen Action Group.

“State and local election officials should be the only ones with access to these, as they run our elections. State officials from both parties have rightfully refused to hand over voter rolls, citing concerns about voters’ private information and the illegality of such requests.”

Archer expressed support for Warner’s refusal to turn over West Virginians’ personal information “for the DOJ’s phony “investigation” which leans heavily on long-debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election.

“These baseless claims are being used as justification to break the law and interfere with free and fair elections in order to maintain power and silence the voices of those who don’t support the President. Ultimately this is about control over who can register to vote, stay on the rolls, and have their vote counted.”

West Virginia officials said the federal government’s first request came last September from a lower level Department of Justice employee.

The state’s response was that it would turn over nothing beyond what would normally be available. Furthermore, the state concluded that “the demand included only a vague explanation of the basis and specific purpose of the request.”

Then earlier this month, Warner said, came an inquiry from the chief at the civil rights division of DOJ: “The response that you provided earlier, we’re giving you a chance to reconsider that.”

The West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office provided a response to the federal official, Eric Neff, acting director of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Voting Section.

Warner said the state’s response was, “Once again, we said no, you’re not going to get the personal information. You can have what everybody else is able to get, but we’re not turning over the list.”

DOJ’s lawsuits contend the Attorney General is uniquely charged by Congress with broad authority to request election records under the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

The contention is that the act allows the attorney general to demand the production, inspection and analysis of statewide voter registration lists that can be cross-checked effectively for improper registrations.

The lawsuit asks to “order Defendant to provide to the Attorney General the current electronic copy of West Virginia’s computerized voter registration list, with all fields, including each registrant’s full name, date of birth, residential address, and either their Driver’s License number, the last four digits of their Social Security number, or HAVA unique identifier.”

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The project coming to 548 acres in Falling Waters, Berkeley County, is spearheaded by the development company Penzance Management, which is a real estate owner, operator, developer and fund manager. It’s been involved with data center development in places like Chantilly, Va., pre-leased to Amazon Web Services.

“We build to suit for hyperscalers. That’s what we do,” Victor Tolkan, managing partner for Penzance, said during an announcement today at the Capitol.

“So we find land, we entitle land, we work with the municipalities, to get what we need — which is powered land, appropriately produced, and then we partner with the hyperscalers who will effectively be our tenants.”

He could not say, at least right now, who that will be.

“No, I can’t, Tolkan said. “I want to add, there are times when we’ve actually signed leases and those people are in buildings and I still can’t.”

Morrisey valued the West Virginia project at $4 billion, a thousand construction jobs and an estimated 125 ongoing jobs.

“Can you feel the buzz?” Morrisey asked a packed reception room during the announcement at the state Capitol.

He later commented, “This is going to be a difference maker for Berkeley County. It’s going to be a difference maker for West Virginia as a whole.”

Data centers (or, high impact intelligence centers, as they are called in West Virginia) are being built across the United States at a record-breaking pace, with construction investment tripling in the last three years to meet big time demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

With more than 4,000 in operation and nearly 3,000 planned or under construction, capacity is expected to double by 2030

They are prolific in states like neighboring Virginia, but they are also controversial among residents because of their aesthetics and noise. They are not major employers but can contribute significantly to local property taxes.

“It’s becoming more and more acrimonious,” Tolkan said of the broader development environment. “It’s pushing people apart. And what we see here in West Virginia is everybody working together as one.”

West Virginia officials have been trying for slices of that pie. Last year, Morrisey pushed and the legislature moved policies intended to allow developers, particularly data centers, to harness localized, self-sufficient energy systems. The legislation also included a formula to split the taxes generated by the properties.

Today’s announcement was met with a lot of enthusiasm, but there were still plenty of unanswered questions like who would be the end user of the developed property, the timeline and how many jobs will ultimately result.

“I think they are not prepared to announce the exact ribbon cutting or the opening, but I know they’re working very hard on that and we’re optimistic,” Morrisey said.

On the number of long-term jobs, the governor and Penzance’s managing partner said that came from an industry average.

“Obviously, there are certain things that you generally know about when you talk about the energy capacity and the footprint and what traditionally happens,” Morrisey said.

“Based upon what I’ve learned, there are estimates that are made. We think they are good faith estimates and we get to that amount but whether it ends up being 124 or 132, there’s always could be some variance. But the size of the facility and what it’s intended to surface, that’s what puts those numbers together.”

The announcement drew praise from Berkeley County Commission President Eddie Gochenour.

“This is really a fantastic opportunity that we’ve never had before. There are some unanswered questions, but I feel very confident after meeting with your team,” Gochenour told the governor and Penzance officials.

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The House Finance Committee, after having had the bill on its agenda morning and afternoon over about a week, finally took it up on Thursday morning.

When a new version was unveiled, the bill had been changed to only focus on changing the scholarship cash flow from two times a year to quarterly. The Finance Committee passed the bill unanimously, agreeing that’s a useful change, but with some questions about what gives.

COMMENTARY by TJ MEADOWS: Legislators appear to have a deal on Hope Scholarship

“I just want to make sure — this is the originating bill that I have in front of me?” asked Delegate Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, holding up a single piece of green paper.

“Very short. But am I accurate in saying that outside of the quarterly payments, there’s no other cost containment language in here?”

It’s the whole bill, the committee’s counsel told him.

Hornbuckle absorbed that. “It’s the whole bill.”

A little more than a week ago, the Finance Committee rolled out a bill aimed at more broadly refining the Hope Scholarship.

The bill would have trimmed Hope Scholarship expenses by capping the amount to families and refining allowable expenses to categories of tuition, curriculum and technology. That bill also would have required standardized testing for Hope Scholarship recipients intended to compare academic achievement with public schools students.

As the bill kept bouncing from agenda to agenda with no action, the governor, the state treasurer and homeschool families expressed displeasure. Now, only the quarterly funding proposal remains.

After the meeting, state Treasurer Larry Pack, a Republican, praised the reconsideration of earlier provisions.

“We understand the need to thoroughly examine all government initiatives and look forward to having future conversations with the leadership of both Houses on this program,” Pack said.

“The Hope Scholarship has had a tremendous impact on thousands of students in West Virginia. We want to ensure the longevity of the program for years to come.”

Democrats like Hornbuckle tried to persuade the finance committee to return some of the earlier provisions to the bill, but their amendments were ruled not germane to the particular section of state code being affected. Both Democrats on the committee, Hornbuckle and John Williams of Morgantown, voted for the bill to advance.

House Health Chairman Evan Worrell, in a hallway interview, said the time spent considering how to best construct the bill had paid off.

“The important piece is that we do need to change the quarterly payments for the state budget. I think that’s an appropriate step to make sure we take care of that from a fiscal standpoint. I support the version of the bill,” said Worrell, R-Cabell.

“I also say I support it because it continues to allow parents to make the best educational choices for their children. The other originating bill put in a lot of other additional guardrails — because the Hope Scholarship does have guardrails today. You can’t just go out and guy whatever you want.”

Homeschool families over a week’s time had gathered in the committee room on a daily basis, including Thursday morning.

Worrell, a member of the committee had found the process as challenging as anyone.

“That was frustrating, but I think what it did is it opened the door to conversations and a lot of conversations with other colleagues, with other stakeholders — and this is what happened because of that, and ultimately we came away with this bill for quarterly payments,” Worrell said.

“But it’s extremely important to talk about these things, to talk about them openly and publicly and understand what is best for our West Virginia citizens, and this is one of those examples.”

The post A very scaled back Hope Scholarship bill advances to House floor appeared first on WV MetroNews.

The vote was 83-14. The 14 no votes were Republicans.

Yet, really, it’s the friends we made along the way.

For example, when addressing a difference between the House budget and the governor’s introduced budget, Finance Chairman Vernon Criss made reference to the state’s chief executive as “His Excellency” and then shared to 99 colleagues, “That was hard to say.”

In another moment, the finance chairman was again addressing how the House budget might vibe with the governor’s and told everybody, “we’ve never had a conversation with the governor.

“He has never darkened the door of the vice chairman of myself other than coming to sit on the bench to listen to Hope Scholarship. But he’s never come to us to talk to us about exactly what he has done on his budget.”

Love is in the air.

This came a day after the governor said he wants to collaborate on the budget, which was a day after he posted that he “will fight against the Legislature chewing up all of the resources” and less than a week after he posted “Tax cuts and school choice used to be page one of the Republican platform— guess House Finance Chair Vernon Criss hasn’t gotten that far.”

It’s a long and winding road.

The big issues still at hand are: Does the budget anticipate spending right up to the revenue estimate or beyond, will the final budget reflect the 5 or 10% tax cut the governor wants, will it include wide open financial support for the Hope school voucher program and will there be any extra dollars for the public schools?

The governor’s proposal, the Senate’s proposal and the budget bill that the House passed this week have been fairly far apart on those matters. None of the budgets right now have additional school funding, although bills reflecting that are still floating around.

Exchanges with Criss and his fellow delegates highlighted some of those cliffhangers.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve had what has been described by his excellency as a flat budget and then you described the budget we did last year as like a skinny budget. How would you describe this budget that we’re about to vote on?” asked Delegate Kayla Young, D-Kanawha.

“Responsible,” replied Criss, R-Wood.

“Okay. I would say so, too,” Young said.

Then, Young asked about some overall spending differences: “So the governor was $5.49 billion. The House is at $5.46 billion. So our budget’s actually lower than the governor’s introduced budget. Is that right?”

“Yes,” said Criss.

“By, like, $33 million?”

Criss specified, “$30,515,410.”

“Okay, I keep getting a lot of texts saying that we need to stop the reckless spending in the House, but I just want to make clear, this budget is less than the governor’s proposed budget.”

Criss then asserted, “Yes, and to add to that, after we’ve done our due diligence on the governor’s budget, his budget was actually unconstitutional because he actually spent more money than he had revenue for.”

Young: “You don’t say.”

Delegates asked more questions about the possibility of a tax cut. That could be reflected in budgetary spending, but the tax cut itself would need to come in the form of a separate bill.

Delegate Henry Corby Dillon, R-Wayne, asked for clarification about whether the House’s amended budget bill would include a tax cut. ”

“Do I understand correctly that this amendment, as it stands— does or does not include any tax cuts factored in? If so, to what extent?” Dillon asked.

Criss responded, “There is a tax cut bill that the Senate has sent over. We will take that up at a later time when we start taking up Senate bills.

“The governor’s revenue estimates is what we’ve been led to believe. We’ve never confirmed that with him. But he’s led us to believe, or his administration, that a 5% has been adjusted in his revenue estimates. So there should be available to us to do a 5% tax cut.”

Dillon asked for additional clarification: “If we had found additional cuts somewhere else in the budget, would that have allowed perhaps for a tax cut of a larger size to be factored in?”

“Sure,” Criss said. “If you wanted to cut Medicaid or want to cut some other social programs or Hope scholarship, whatever, then we could probably do that.”

The post The House bakes its version of the budget bill and adds some spice appeared first on WV MetroNews.

HB 5453 is a significant revision of the current public school funding formula to make it simpler, more transparent and more aligned with student needs — especially special education — while moving away from the current step‑based, multi‑schedule formula.

The House Finance Committee examined the bill today.

In December, the state school board approved consolidations and closures of more than a dozen schools across six counties. The state board recently agreed to two more closures in Wayne County. The state also experienced a wave of school consolidations last year.

House Bill 5433 would establish block grants of $6,500 per enrolled student. There’s a floor, so counties with fewer than 1,200 enrolled students would be funded at least for that number.

The bill also includes supplemental funding for special needs students. Special education costs, which often involve one-on-one learning or nursing staff, have been a growing financial consideration for public schools.

And the bill could enable counties to request more funding for special circumstances such as transportation, vocational and technical centers, alterative learning centers and pilot programs.

“What we were looking at was, how can you streamline this, make it simpler,” said Delegate Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, the lead sponsor of the bill.

“So, for us to figure out how to figure out how to fund public education more consistent level, and also look at certain needs that the state and what we’ve seen in other states have been going on as far as how to fund those appropriately.”

The bill includes a cost estimate of $214,792,461.

As the bill stands now, the policy could go into effect for 2027-28, but Ellington acknowledged that could be changed based on the state’s financial situation.

The state Senate has been considering bills with similar concepts.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey, speaking at a press conference today, expressed financial caution about additional state support for schools.

He acknowledged that his budget, the House budget, and the Senate budget all currently do not include changes to the school aid formula.

“You know, those issues didn’t get brought to us at the budget. It’s kind of hard to come up with that now, but I’ll look at everything and I want to make sure we put our kids first,” Morrisey said in response to a question by West Virginia Watch.

“Public school is foundational in West Virginia, and I’m going to make sure that it’s funded. So I’m going to always look at different ways to make it happen.”

The governor’s comments about public school spending came in the context of his steady support for millions of additional dollars for the Hope Scholarship for children receiving their education outside the public school system.

Ahead of the first year of full implementation to all families who want to use the money, the Hope Scholarship has anticipated cost of $230 million and an increased base of $127.3 million in the coming fiscal year.

“Everything that’s being done in Hope is not hurting other public education. I support public education. I think it’s really important that we continue to do that,” Morrisey said.

West Virginia already spends a relatively high amount per pupil in the public school system, Morrisey said, so the issue is how current dollars are used — not simply how much more is appropriated.

So I think we really, before we just keep throwing money at problems, we have to be responsible for how we’re spending the money, how we are arriving at the place where we have 10 counties that have the kind of problems that we have, and I’d like to do that before I say, ‘Well, now we’re going to commit another large bucket of money,'” Morrisey said.

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“We’re really eager to work and collaborate with the House and Senate, but also we have a very fiscally responsible budget, and I think that there’s an opportunity to help collaborate together to get everyone to be singing the same tune,” Morrisey said today.

A House of Delegates budget proposal is set up for passage as soon as Wednesday. The state Senate passed its proposed budget last Friday. There are major differences between those, as well as with the governor’s proposal.

The governor highlighted his willingness to work with lawmakers during a press conference today at the state Capitol. Morrisey has had several recent social media posts expressing differences.

“New spending bills that pass in the WV Legislature should be offset and accounted for. We cannot sacrifice our future for the wild spending of today,” Morrisey posted Monday night.

“I will fight against the Legislature chewing up all of the resources we need to provide West Virginians with the across the board income tax reductions they deserve.”

Last week he posted, “Tax cuts and school choice used to be page one of the Republican platform— guess House Finance Chair Vernon Criss hasn’t gotten that far.”

Morrisey’s budget proposal included a 5% personal income tax cut that amounts to $125 million in state revenue. The governor aspires to cutting a full 10% — which would be another $125 million.

The Senate’s budget bill does include the 10% tax cut while the House bill up for passage next week does not have the 5 or the 10.

“Now I know the Senate put that in and they have some offset. I think there’s a way to get to 10 percent. What I’m telling people is we want to collaborate and work. We know that we at least have the 5% in there. Let’s work together to make all that happen and not put the lines in the sand,” Morrisey said today.

The Hope Scholarship to support the educational expenses of families opting out of public schools is an expense that grows and grows. In the Senate budget that’s more than $300 million for the next fiscal year, but it’s generally from surplus funding — meaning money that could be on hand if the state brings in more revenue than anticipated.

The House is considering a bill that would trim Hope Scholarship expenses by capping the amount to families and refining allowable expenses.

Morrisey today described Hope as an entitlement that must be fully funded if the state is going to offer it.

“I was not supportive of what the House Finance did,” he said. “I deal with things that are in front of me, and so I’m not supportive of that. And I think obviously there’s been a lot of pushback on that, but I do believe that we should keep Hope intact and be very strong.”

It’s still early in the 60-day session, Day 42, but the competing visions of state finances are about to collide.

Senator Eric Tarr, a former finance committee chairman, voted no on the Senate’s budget last week. He contended that the state can’t yet afford to embrace another tax cut.

“We increased spending and then gave a revenue reduction that was just didn’t match up,” Tarr, R-Putnam, said on MetroNews Talkline.

He added, “If we take this thing right now as a Senate passed it, we’re going to have a huge budget hole coming up in the next few years, and that gets really painful. It gets painful for the people of West Virginia, and that’s what I don’t want to see.”

The state cut income taxes by about 27 percent over the past few years and has a trigger system in place to cut more if economic conditions are met.

Tarr suggested the state could move in advance of that trigger if officials have the discipline to hold spending flat for a year.

“You can’t spend more than you make,” he said. “It means it’s simple family economics.”

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Senate Bill 399 would create what the governor has called the “Bring Them Home Fund.” The Senate Judiciary Committee discussed the bill for about an hour on Monday afternoon before advancing it.

The bill now goes to the Senate Finance Committee for consideration. A similar bill, House Bill 4021, earlier advanced out of that chamber’s health committee and is awaiting review by House Finance.

The legislative calendar essentially lays out a deadline by the end of this week to move bills out of committee.

West Virginia continues to have 5,905 total child welfare placements, according to a state dashboard, and, of the total, 546 are out of state placements.

West Virginia children are typically sent to out-of-state placements because of a shortage of available local foster homes or specialized facilities that can meet their specific behavioral, medical or therapeutic needs.

“The genesis of this was really an outgrowth of some of those types of conversations that the department had been having with those existing providers in the state of West Virginia, about expanding the need for what we don’t currently have in West Virginia, and why we’re having to send so many of our kids to other states,” Curtis Capehart, policy director for the governor’s office, told senators.

The governor has described wanting to improve the longstanding situation. The governor has described a new revolving investment fund meant to reduce out-of-state placements by investing in state facilities.

He has described a goal of expanding in-state treatment capacity while reinvesting the savings from the more costly out of state placements to build capacity in the state.

Morrisey has said the revolving investment fund could be used to renovate and repair existing state properties and provide high acuity psychiatric, neurodevelopmental and trauma services.

Capehart told senators, “This was an effort to move in the direction of actually reinvesting money into the state’s facilities that we already own so that we would have the capacity to have facilities that could provide these kinds of high acuity services here in West Virginia.”

The bill under consideration would establish the trust fund to be administered by the Department of Human Services.

It is not an appropriations bill, but it does specify that the fund would include any appropriations by the Legislature as well as any grants, gifts, donations, contributions or revenues received plus interest that’s generated.

The bill continues by saying the secretary of human services would oversee investing the savings from decreased numbers of out-of-state placements directly into the fund for continued expansion of high-quality child welfare treatment facilities and services.

The human services secretary would be authorized to use the fund to renovate existing state properties to expand high-acuity psychiatric, neurodevelopmental and trauma services for children in West Virginia and to develop treatment programs that match clinical profiles of youth historically placed out-of-state.

Senator Joey Garcia, D-Marion, tried to amend the bill to prioritize grant funding for nonprofit organizations for renovation, construction and maintenance of facilities, but his proposal was rejected. Garcia, at the end of the meeting, said he would offer the proposal again on the Senate floor.

“I’m not one to give up easy,” Garcia said. “I’m going to make this amendment on floor too, and I will do my best to talk to each and every person on this committee, each and every person in the Senate, because this is a really important issue, and it’s important we get this right.”

Senator Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, made a broader closing remark to say the state has the wrong focus on this matter — “So I think this is a misjudgment.”

“We have right now north of $500 million in deferred maintenance that is not met presently across the state in state facilities — when you talk about our jails, prisons, colleges, schools, you name it. Our hospitals that just sold were about to fall in on themselves. We had to get rid of them because we didn’t keep them up,” Tarr said.

Meanwhile, he said, long-term providers for residential placement in the state experienced months of pay gaps.

“We’re going to have to get providers paid on time, paid for what they do in the state of West Virginia. We ought to pay more. That’s what fixes this problem. Not going to build more buildings that we can’t keep up. So I’m a no vote on this bill,” Tarr said.

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