Gov. Jim Justice plans to call another special session of the state’s legislature in the coming months.
Speaking at a revenue announcement event Monday, the governor announced he plans to call a special session in August or September to cut more from the state’s personal income tax.
“So I want to call you back, and I want to challenge you to some way, somehow, try to do an additional 5 percent from the personal income tax,” Justice said. “It’ll be tough, but there’s a way to do it, and all of us can work together and figure out how to do it and how to do it now.”
Justice previously called the legislature into special session in May to make appropriations that were incomplete at the end of the regular session in March.
He pleaded with lawmakers present at the event to pass another piece of legislature when they reconvene.
“The other thing I’m going to ask you to do when I call you back in is address childcare,” Justice said. “Please, for God’s sake a living, pass my childcare tax credit. It was $4.2 million, it’s next to nothing.”
He said the tax credit, paired with another personal income tax cut, will help young families that are, “paying out to ying yang today to try to be able to have childcare.”
“Really, what we need in this state now is young people,” Justice said. “We need people with young families that go to our schools and all that stuff, but in all that we gotta have workers. We have to have workers. The two ways that I would tell you today that can drive more and more and more goodness to West Virginia is lower the personal income tax as much as you possibly can and absolutely some way address this dilemma of child care, we gotta keep our child care organizations going.”
