Tag: Budget

Lawmakers Begin Work on 2016 Budget

A conference committee of seven members of the House of Delegates and seven members of the Senate began work Monday on finding compromise in their budget bills. Each chamber approved their own version of the Fiscal Year 2016 budget last week. 

Senate Finance Chair Mike Hall said each chamber is walking into the negotiations with some priorities.

 In the Senate, members chose to approve a bill that contains a $6 million increase in funds for the West Virginia State Police and their forensics lab. 

Because of staffing shortages, Hall said the lab has a backlog of thousands of cases which in the end increases costs for counties. 

“The problem there is that if somebody is stuck at a regional jail waiting for their trial and their trial is delayed and delayed and delayed, the speculation is the counties are paying on the low end $13 million, on the high end $25, $30, $40 million of regional jail costs that if these things were done quickly would save a lot of money,” Hall said Monday.

“So, this $6 million is not just being thrown to the wind. There is a significant return on investment for the counties.”

The House is also looking to get a “return on investment” for their dollars, choosing to prioritize Community and Technical College funding in their budget.

Gov. Tomblin’s proposed budget included a 1.$ percent across the board cut for Higher Education. The House chose to restore the cut funds to all but one CTC in the state.

“We have a lot of need in our Community and Technical Colleges right now, especially with the growth in certain areas like the oil and gas in the north as well as in the Eastern Panhandle with needs in increased enrollment,” Nelson said.

“So, we just felt that we were putting money back to where it was going to have the biggest return going forward.”

Because of other differences in budget lines, the chambers differ, in the end, in the amount of one-time dollars pulled from the state’s Rainy Day Fund.

Delegates have passed a bill taking about $21 million from the Rainy Day Fund while Senators needed around $27 million to balance their proposed budget.

Governor Tomblin used $15 million from the one-time reserve for 2016, but said he will be working with lawmakers during budget week to keep the number below $30 million.

Lawmakers Work to Balance 2015 Budget While 2016 Deficits Loom

With a projected $80 million budget gap by the end of this fiscal year, lawmakers are considering bills to ensure a balanced budget is maintained.

Members of the Senate approved four of Governor Tomblin’s supplemental appropriation bills for fiscal year 2015, the current budget year, intended to help close the gap.

The bills move excess funds from last year’s budget to the state accounts that pay for Medicaid and Medicaid services. The expenses this year, and in years past, have been substantially more than projected. 

Senate Finance Chair Mike Hall explained aside from the growing Medicaid budget, the accounts contain millions upon millions of state dollars and are often borrowed from to cover shortfalls in other areas.

Approving supplemental bills for the current year is nothing new for lawmakers. Hall said while legislators do their best to provide a viable budget for the next fiscal year, revenues and expenditures are constantly changing and the legislature or the governor has to go back and fill in the gaps. 

“The governor can change the budget projections throughout the year. Our budget document is a solid document, but it is a document that can be amended and changed,” he said, “and if you look back you’ll see the current year’s budget was changed by these types of supplemental actions reflecting either a surplus that was spent or in this case a deficit where you need to grab money from somewhere to fill the gap.”

As for the upcoming 2016 budget, Hall said he is prepared to present his proposal to lawmakers next week, but doesn’t expect a final vote on the budget bill during the regular session.

Earlier in the session, Hall and House Finance Chair Delegate Eric Nelson said leadership intended to forgo an extended budget session this year, but Hall has since recanted that statement. He said there are too many moving parts to finalize a budget before all of the final bills are past.

Hall expects lawmakers to take two or three days in the week following the regular session to finalize the 2016 budget.

Senators Consider Pay Raise for DNR Officers

Members of the Senate Natural Resources Committee took up a bill that would give Division of Natural Resources law enforcement officers a raise in the upcoming fiscal year and every year following. 

The bill raises the base salary for new officers from $31,222 in their first year to $33,994. All other officers will receive a bump in the range of two to six thousand dollars a year.

The introduced version of the bill also grants the officers a $400 a year raise for every year they remain on the force.

Senate Bill 92 comes with a $1.1 million fiscal note for the upcoming budget year, and a $1.6 million implication for the following year. 

DNR law enforcement head Col. Jerry Jenkins told members of the committee his division is competing with the West Virginia State Police, counties and even some city departments that can pay more.

“Right now we’re trying to fill seven positions which we didn’t have much of an applicant pool to pull from,” he said, “and we’re finding a lot of these people have already applied for other agencies and they’ve been turned down.”

Jenkins also told the committee his officers, unlike many other law enforcement agencies, must have a four year degree or some combination of a two year degree with specialized law enforcement or military training.

The bill passed the committee and goes to Senate Finance for further consideration.

Republican Leaders Looking to Get Rid of Extended Budget Session

Every year state lawmakers take an additional week after their normal legislative session to finalize the budget for the following fiscal year, but Republican lawmakers are looking to change that.

Typically, lawmakers work their way through all of the proposed pieces of legislation in 60 days and come back for an extended budget session the following week to finalize the numbers, but Republican leaders in both the House and Senate want to move away from that tradition.

“Our intention is to try not to do that,” Senate Finance Chair Mike Hall said Wednesday.

“If you’ll notice bills are coming out very early, our leadership is already running legislation very early in. So, if all the general law that affects the budget is done early, we can then do the budget early and be done in 60 days,” he said.

A special or extended session can cost taxpayers as much as $30,000 per day.

Governor Not Calling for Additional Budget Cuts

Gov. Tomblin is telling state agencies to keep their budgets on par with this year’s spending plans.

The Charleston Daily Mail reports Revenue Secretary Bob Kiss last week sent instructions to agency heads on submitting 2016 budget requests. The 2015 fiscal year started in July.

After two years of 7.5 percent reductions, Kiss’ correspondence said additional funding would be considered only in rare cases.

Last week, the Department of Revenue announced general revenue fell $17.4 million short in July.

The shortfall was partly due to one-time revenue transfers carried over from June. Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow also pointed to sluggish sales and personal income tax growth as problematic. 

Committee Moves Bill to Allow County Employee Pay Increases

A Senate committee Friday approved Senate Bill 379 to remove a salary cap for county employees, if the county finds they have the funds.Originally the…

A Senate committee Friday approved Senate Bill 379 to remove a salary cap for county employees, if the county finds they have the funds.

Originally the bill required a 12 percent pay raise, but it was amended to ensure lawmakers weren’t passing an unfunded mandate.

“We are not voting for an increase for elected officials. We are lifting a cap in which they can work with their own money. So, this is no state money,” Sen. John Unger said during the meeting.

Committee counsel assured him there was no state money involved. Lawmakers were simply authorizing a county commission to give the increase if they could afford it.

Senator Bill Laird, a former county commissioner, said this bill helps to ensure quality people are stepping into county positions and are being properly compensated for their hard work.
 

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