Members of the West Virginia National Guard as well as guardsmen and women from other states are preparing for thousands of Boy Scouts to descend on southern West Virginia.
The National Guard is working with both military and civilian members of the federal Department of Defense to prepare for the Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree that begins next week.
Scouts from across the country will begin arriving at the Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve in Fayette County Wednesday. The jamboree itself is a week and a half long event that will have Scouts participating in a number of outdoor and adventure activities on the site as well as community service activities in several West Virginia counties.
More than 1,400 military members from all branches of the armed services are preparing to serve as support staff for the event. Members of the West Virginia National Guard will be on standby for airlift and medical support in case of an emergency.
This year’s jamboree is the second to take place at the Bechtel Reserve since its grand opening in 2014.
The Governor’s Office says the state technically ended the previous fiscal year in the black last month, but there is already a deficit in fiscal year 2018.
The new budget year officially began July 1—less than two weeks ago—and the state is already $11 million short.
Gov. Jim Justice’s Chief of Staff Nick Casey said Wednesday that’s because lawmakers anticipated a larger surplus at the end of the previous fiscal year.
Casey explained West Virginia ended fiscal year 2017 with a $100 million deficit.
Revenue officials were able to plug that hole by sweeping agency accounts, or taking one-time money state agencies had saved, maintaining previous cuts, and by using money from the Rainy Day Fund. Casey said with all of that action, the state actually ended the fiscal year with a $63 million surplus.
The problem is lawmakers were counting on an $82 million surplus and had appropriated half of that revenue into the current budget.
“As we started July 1, the prediction of the Legislature that we would in fact have a surplus we could spend was over stated by $11 million,” Casey said, “so we started $11 million in the hole.”
Casey said the governor is hoping for increased severance tax revenues and a boost from road construction in the upcoming fiscal year, but those increased revenues are already built into the budget and won’t make up for the $11 million shortfall.
The bickering that has persisted at the statehouse since the end of the special session between Gov. Jim Justice and legislative leaders continued at the…
The bickering that has persisted at the statehouse since the end of the special session between Gov. Jim Justice and legislative leaders continued at the Capitol Wednesday, this time over restrooms.
Justice’s Office sent another statement Wednesday morning – one of many released over the past few weeks – criticizing members of the Legislature for their funding priorities.
In the fiscal year 2018 budget, lawmakers included $860,000 for a project to upgrade restrooms within the state Capitol building, a project that was approved in 2009 under former-Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin. Lawmakers say they had set aside the money for the project.
The governor called the funding “bullsnot” because the upgrades include some private restrooms that only lawmakers can access.
“Based on how poorly the Legislature did this past year, the taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for a new outhouse— much less a new luxury bathroom,” Justice said.
But as it turns out, the plan pays for necessary upgrades in the Capitol building’s public restrooms to make them compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Passed in 1990, the federal ADA is a civil rights law that protect individuals from discrimination based on their disability.
Credit Will Price
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West Virginia Legislative Photography
Senate President Mitch Carmichael during a 2017 floor session.
In a written statement, Senate President Mitch Carmichael countered the governor’s attack, saying the bathrooms had not been updated since the Capitol was built in 1932.
“I think the audacity for the Governor to be so crass and callous about desperately needed renovations to the people’s house is simply beneath the kind of person we expect to lead this state,” Carmichael said.
“If the Governor finds it so deeply offensive that the Senate would choose to spend its responsibly managed operations budget on making our State Capitol more accessible to West Virginians with disabilities, I’m proud to be the person who offended him.”
The project includes updates to 8 restrooms, including those throughout the members’ offices.
In an additional statement Wednesday afternoon the governor said:
“Of course I want state facilities accessible to ALL West Virginians. The issue is spending taxpayer money on the PRIVATE office bathrooms that are only for Senators. After the Senate cut the DHHR budget and hurt our sick, poor, and disabled it’s nice that they finally want to do something to help people with disabilities.”
This year’s state budget included more than $16 million in cuts to higher education institutions, forcing many schools to raise tuition and fees. But Glenville State College is trying to buck that trend.
Glenville State College President Dr. Tracy Pellett announced last month his school would not raise tuition in response to the cuts. Instead, it would refinance its mortgage in order to “hold the line” on costs.
Pellett announced Tuesday that Glenville would take yet another step toward holding the cost of higher education for its students.
The college’s Board of Governors voted to reduce the price of its residential meal plan by $100. The board also voted to eliminate the mandatory $100 a year meal plan for students who live off campus.
Pellett said while $100 may not sound like much, it could make or break a student who is already struggling to afford their education.
“In the last ten years the cost of going to college has skyrocketed beyond what many parents and students are able to pay so it’s been critical for us to come up with ways to cut those costs,” he said.
Pellett said nutrition is pivotal to student success and his college will continue to find ways to cut costs for students into the future.
The West Virginia Board of Education has voted a second time against consolidating schools in Nicholas County.
The vote came one day before a court hearing in a lawsuit against the state over the first vote.
Members of the state Board of Education voted 6 to 1 Monday to refuse to accept a consolidation plan approved earlier by the Nicholas County Board of Education.
It’s the second state board vote on the issue. The first came on June 13 and was followed by the filing of a lawsuit.
In that suit, Nicholas County board members claim the state arbitrarily denied the consolidation plan. That’s why state board President Tom Campbell said the board took a second vote on Monday– to clarify its decision.
But Campbell said his board still wants to work with Nicholas County.
“We tried to offer to expedite a plan with the School Building Authority president, me and the president of the Nicholas County board and they said no,” Campbell said after the vote.
“So, I’d just like to see more cooperation and less distance from the people who are affected by the decision.”
The consolidation plan presented to the state would combine five schools all onto one campus in the Summersville area – Richwood High and Middle Schools, Summersville Middle, Nicholas County High School, and the county’s vocational school.
Richwood High and Middle and Summersville Middle were all damaged during the June 2016 flooding that devastated much of southern and central West Virginia. The schools have not been reopened.
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Duke Bloom will hear arguments in the case Tuesday morning.
With 15 months to go until Election Day, yet another candidate has added his name to the list of those vying for Democrat Joe Manchin's seat in the U.S.…
With 15 months to go until Election Day, yet another candidate has added his name to the list of those vying for Democrat Joe Manchin’s seat in the U.S. Senate.
Attorney General Patrick Morrisey formally announced his bid at a hotel in Harper’s Ferry Monday. The Republican was just elected to his second four-year term in the office last year.
That race brought in millions of dollars from out-of-state interests, including nearly $7 million from a political action committee under a national Republican Attorneys General group, which Morrisey chairs.
In his announcement speech, Morrisey promised to continue much of the same work he started at the statehouse in Washington.
“We need new leadership in West Virginia,” he said, “real leadership to help the president with an agenda infused with conservative values.”
Those values, Morrisey said, include supporting the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, promoting gun ownership rights, and reforming the nation’s tax code.
But Morrisey isn’t the only conservative in the race. Republican Congressman Evan Jenkins has also touted himself as the conservative choice since announcing his candidacy in May through a YouTube video.
Credit Zach Gibson / Associated Press
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Associated Press
West Virginia Congressman Evan Jenkins, right, during his 2017 swearing in ceremony in Washington.
Less than an hour after Morrisey’s scheduled announcement Monday, the Jenkins campaign released its first set of digital attack ads, going after Morrisey for his past work as a D.C. lobbyist, and potentially setting up what many in political circles around West Virginia have predicted- an ugly and expensive Republican primary between the two.
Jenkins and Morrisey won’t be the only names on the ballot, though.
They’ll be joined by Republicans Jack Newbrough of Weirton, Scott Ernst of Union, and Bo Copely of Lenore. Copely is the coal miner who confronted Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her comments about the industry at a campaign stop in West Virginia last year.
On the Democratic side of the ticket, current Senator and former governor Joe Manchin will face Edwin Vanover of Bluefield and Chase Henderson of Huntington.
