West Virginia Citizen Action Group says it will appeal the approval of a $1.1 billion deal for the sale of the Harrison Power Station.
The Public Service Commission approved the transaction late Monday, saying it would reduce Mon Power rates by $16 million a year.
The deal involves Ohio-based FirstEnergy subsidiaries Mon Power and Potomac Edison, and affiliate Allegheny Energy Supply.
Mon Power is buying the 80 percent of the 1,984-megawatt plant that it doesn’t currently own. In exchange, Mon Power will sell 8 percent of its interest in the Pleasants Power Station to Allegheny Energy Supply.
Opponents say the transaction is inflated by $257 million and is bad for consumers.
West Virginia Citizen Action says that price markup ruling violates stipulations of the merger agreement and contradicts commission policy.
The State Fair of West Virginia said this year’s event was a success, despite rain that reduced attendance.
State Fair Chief Executive Officer Marlene Joliffe said in a news release that the 89th annual event saw about 175,000 visitors, down from the decade’s average of about 180,000-195,000 fairgoers.
Rain fell on five days during the fair’s eight-day run in August in Fairlea, WV.
Joliffe said 67 percent of fairgoers who responded to an online survey rated their experience at the fair as above average or excellent.
There were an estimated 4,000 entries in the livestock, 4-H, FFA, home arts and garden competitions.
Winning exhibitors were paid a total $175,000 in award premiums.
About 20,000 concert tickets were sold, and 20,000 pounds of food collected which was distributed to six area food banks, along with cash donations.
Joliffe estimated the Fair had a $14 million dollar economic impact on the state.
A coal miner is the state’s newest millionaire after winning the West Virginia Powerball.
State Lottery Commissioner John Musgrave announced Monday David Feamster from Rupert is the latest one million dollar Powerball winner. He matched five numbers from last Wednesday’s drawing, missing only the Powerball number.
A father of three, Feamster and his wife say they already have plans for the money. He says they will donate to their church, pay off their mortgage and put some in savings.
His ticket was one of only three nationally to match five from that particular drawing and no one won the jackpot by matching all six numbers. Feamster bought his winning ticket at a gas station in Rainelle.
Governor Tomblin announced a trip later this month touring 5 European countries to lobby business leaders for investment in West Virginia industries.The…
Governor Tomblin announced a trip later this month touring 5 European countries to lobby business leaders for investment in West Virginia industries.
The 13 day trip is scheduled for mid-October and has the governor and three members of the state’s Development Office meeting with business leaders in Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.
Tomblin said he will be focusing on strengthening the relationships West Virginia has with companies already doing business in the state as well as targeting some who are considering investing.
One of the main focuses is a plastic-polymer trade show in which the governor said the state can offer the abundant bi-products of the Marcellus shale industry, in particular ethane, to the industries for production.
“My whole goal is to create jobs and bring investment to the state of West Virginia and my theory has been you can’t sit and wait for business to come through the door,” Tomblin said during a press conference Tuesday. “You have to go out and let people know what we have to offer in West Virginia and that’s what we hope to do on this mission.”
Nearly one-third, or $11.3 billion in West Virginia’s annual exports go to Europe.
The governor’s office has not yet released the amount this trip will cost the state.
The fourth series of Inspiring West Virginians features one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, John Forbes Nash, Jr, a 1994 winner of the…
The fourth series of Inspiring West Virginians features one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, John Forbes Nash, Jr, a 1994 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Nash grew up in Bluefield, West Virginia, and the town still holds an importance for him. Now 84, John Nash is currently a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University in New Jersey.
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Listen to John Nash's visit with Jean Snedegar.
His life was the subject of the 1998 best-selling biography, A Beautiful Mind, and the 2001 Hollywood film (which won the Best Picture Oscar) of the same name. Other contributors to the Nash profile are Nash’s sister, Martha Nash Legg; Cliff Hawley, Professor of Economics at West Virginia University; Steve Shreve (a native of Greenbrier County) and DejanSlepcev, both mathematicians at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Also in this season:
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Diane Lewis, Morgantown AFM
Diane Lewis, founder and CEO of Action Facilities Management, a security and facilities company based in Morgantown. Her company, which started in 2001 with one employee (her 17-year-old son!) now employs more than 300 people in nine states. Lewis, a native of the Adamston neighborhood in Clarksburg, is currently the Small Business Person of the Year in West Virginia. Lewis also serves on the Board of Governors of West Virginia University and is a leader in the Teaming to Win events for small businesses in West Virginia.
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Diane Lewis shares her journey.
She and her husband Kenny Jackson run a non-profit organization, Members of Diversity, which helps youngsters from minority groups to develop the skills they need to find jobs. Also contributing to the profile are Lewis’ sister, Donna Jean Forge, Brad Calandrelli, Director of Facilities at the High Tech Consortium in Fairmont and James Clements, President of West Virginia University.
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Rodney Bartis, Director of the WV Nature Conservancy, stands next to a 500 year old hemlock in 2013
Rodney Bartgis, State Director of The Nature Conservancy in West Virginia and one of the region’s most respected scientists in field biology and ecology. Since he was a child in Berkeley County, Bartgis has discovered dozens of rare plant species in West Virginia, and many naturalists agree that he knows more about the natural history of West Virginia than anyone alive. To help protect the state’s amazing biodiversity, Bartgis, along with colleagues at The Nature Conservancy and others, has helped to conserve some of West Virginia’s most unique wild places – in the New River Gorge, Canaan Valley, the Smoke Hole Canyon, Cranberry Glades, Panther Knob and Pike Knob, among many others.
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Rodney Bartgis gives a tour of wild Pendleton County.
Other contributors to his profile include Bartgis’ father, Bob Bartgis; Elizabeth Byers, plant ecologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, and the team of men who have been hiking the Mountain State with Bartgis for more than 35 years.
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Inspiring West Virginian, bio-engineer Linda Powers
Linda Powers, a bio-engineer at the University of Arizona in Tucson, builds instruments that use light to look for life in extreme environments – from microbes in hospital operating rooms, to microbes in remote deserts to life on Mars. She is considered the top person in the world in this field, with many of her projects funded by the Department of Defense and NASA. She is the Thomas R Brown Distinguished Professor of Bio-Engineering at the University of Arizona, and is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Powers, a native of Beckley, is a former winner of the West Virginia State Science Fair and the national Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now funded by Intel) sometimes referred to as “the nation’s oldest and most prestigious” science competition. Powers placed among the top five science students in the nation.
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Linda Powers describes the work in her lab.
Other contributors to her profile include colleague and bio-engineer Walter Ellis; scientist and engineer Lois Wardell, and former Woodrow Wilson High School classmate, Kathy Smith Simmons.
Inspiring West Virginians,the West Virginia Public Radio series which profiles leading scientists, engineers and business people from the Mountain State, is produced and presented by Jean Snedegar, an independent producer based in Elkins. Suzanne Higgins is the Senior Producer for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Newly appointed Secretary of Revenue Bob Kiss and members of his department presented an overview of last year’s budget to lawmakers. Legislators…
Newly appointed Secretary of Revenue Bob Kiss and members of his department presented an overview of last year’s budget to lawmakers. Legislators scrutinized the governor’s last minute decision to cut almost $18 million from Medicaid to balance the budget at the end of the last fiscal year, but they were also given some crucial insight into the revenue numbers for this year. To fulfill his Constitutional duties in balancing the state budget, Governor Tomblin cut the state’s Medicaid program by nearly $18 million at the end of the Fiscal Year 2013.
But where that money went is still in question by some lawmakers, including House Minority Whip Daryl Cowles. He questioned Secretary Kiss during a Joint Committee on Finance.
“What was that money spent on? If we appropriated it to Medicaid, what was that money spent on?” Cowles asked.
“It wasn’t spent on anything. It didn’t exist so to speak. So, the budget had to be cut to make sure you finished the year with a balanced budget,” Kiss responded. “That $17 million didn’t go any place.”
So, it wasn’t spent. Kiss explained the governor made the total Medicaid budget smaller than what the legislature had appropriated for that year in order to keep West Virginia out of the red.
But that last minute cut wasn’t the only time Medicaid had been shorted in Fiscal Year 2013.
The fiscal year ended before a funding bill passed by the legislature for the program could take effect. That bill would have taken $67 million out of excess lottery funds and put them toward Medicaid.
Regular lottery funds were down last year as well. Of the $50 million dollars from that fund that is dedicated to Medicaid, only $29 million actually came in, adding another $21 million to the program’s deficit.
In total, Medicaid was shorted about $109 million in Fiscal Year 2013.
Director of the State Budget Office Mike McKown said for now, the program is financially stable.
“Medicaid’s cash flow is pretty good right now, but by the middle of probably March if we don’t appropriate some money to Medicaid, there’s going to be some cash flow problems,” McKowan said.
“On the last day of the fiscal year we didn’t really have many options to balance the budget. If we had not cut them the last day, nothing would have gotten re-appropriated which would have caused some major problems for some of the agencies and we felt that the cash flow was strong in the Medicaid program for a few months so that was the reasoning behind that.”
Secretary Kiss reassured the committee the emergency $18 million cut to the program’s funding is not a permanent one. The legislature will be able to restore those funds and the $67 million dollars appropriated from lottery funds is still in the state accounts to be put toward the program.
But Medicaid isn’t the only state funded program feeling financial woes. A letter in early August from Kiss and Tomblin asked state agencies to prepare its budgets as if it were taking a 7.5 percent cut. For the second year in a row.
Tomblin stressed this was a precautionary measure, but three months into the Fiscal Year, McKown said revenues are already below estimates.
“At the end of August, after two months into this fiscal year, we were down $32 million for estimate,” he told the committee. “So, this year started off not strong, but we’re keeping a close eye on that.”
McKown did bring some good news to the committee. He said budget cuts have been made without having to furlough or lay off any workers, the state has kept up with retirement contributions and the bond rating is still very good because of a strong Rainy Day Fund, ranked one of the top five in the nation.
Currently holding about $907 million, McKown added that fund, however, is not enough to fall back on. If the state lost all sources of revenue, the Rainy Day Fund could only sustain state spending for an additional two and a half months.
