Tag: House of Delegates

Bill Would Give Counties More Control Over Severance Tax Dollars

Members of the House took up a bill Wednesday that would give coal producing counties more control over how they spend those revenues.

House Bill 4668 increases the threshold of coal severance taxes counties can use to pay salaries and employee benefits. State law says only a fourth of those severance dollars can be used to pay personnel, but the bill would increase the allowable share from one-fourth to one-half.  

Although it impacts all 55 counties, it was Kanawha County that brought the issue to lawmakers.

Delegate Nancy Guthrie of Kanawha County is one of the sponsors of the bill. She says the Kanawha County Commission uses the tax to pay the salaries of three sheriff’s deputies who patrol the eastern portion of the county.

Unless the county can increase the percentage of the tax used, she says declining tax collections could force the county to cut the pay or even the positions.

“We need to have those deputies in those communities policing and cutting down on crime. That’s really invaluable for a community that has a high drug rate, has a high rate of violence, because of the lack of jobs in that area,” she said.

The bill passed overwhelmingly 99 to 0 and now heads to the Senate.

House Passes Bill to Help Addicts in Jail

The House of Delegates approved a bill that expands addiction treatment available in regional jails.

House Bill 4176 would create a program for inmates in regional jails suffering from an addiction to opioids, allowing them to receive medical treatment with the drug Vivitrol coupled with counseling.

Vivitrol is an injection that blocks the effects of drugs like heroin or prescription painkillers for 30 days and also helps fight the cravings for those drugs.

Delegate Chris Stansbury is a Republican from Kanawha County. Last year, he championed a similar bill that allowed the same kind of treatment in state drug courts. He says by expanding this pilot program, more people can get help to fight an addiction.

“It really behooves us to help those people now, while they’re incarcerated, give them an opportunity to get clean and stay clean on the outside and become productive members of society again,” Stansbury said.

The bill passed 97 to 1. The one no vote came from Delegate Mike Pushkin, a Democrat from Kanawha County, who felt treating addiction with another medication was not the answer.

House Votes to End Racetrack Modernization Fund

Members of the House have approved a bill that would halt the state-funded updates casino games.
 

 
House Bill 4271 ends discretionary transfers to the Licensed Racetrack Modernization Fund. Proposed on behalf of Governor Tomblin, the bill would end the program that was set to expire in 2020 four years early — putting $9 million a year back into the general revenue budget.
 

 
Some Delegates expressed concerns on the floor that without the Licensed Racetrack Modernization Fund, the state’s four racetrack casinos won’t be able to stay competitive with out-of-state businesses, but the bill passed on a 62 to 37 vote.
 

 
The Senate will still have to take up the measure.

Sales Tax Bill Dead in the House

Members of the House of Delegates have killed a bill that would have reduced the state’s consumer sales tax while removing exemptions for certain types of professional services.

House Bill 2704 was tabled on a 92-2 vote in the House.

On Saturday, the bill was passed out of the House Finance Committee and also pushed forward on first reading.

The committee version of the bill would have reduced the state’s sales tax to 5.5 percent beginning January 1, 2017, while closing loopholes in some services that are exempt from the tax.

It was expected to bring in an additional $70 million dollars in the first calendar year, imposing the tax on legal, accounting and engineering services, just to name a few. After that, the bill proposed continued to reduce the sales tax, aiming to reach 4.75 percent by January 1, 2020.

House Finance Committee Chairman Eric Nelson said both sides of the aisle had concerns and leadership felt it was best to table the bill.

Minority Leader Tim Miley made the motion to table the bill initially Monday afternoon, but his motion was rejected.

House Passes Bill Banning Common Second-Trimester Abortion Technique

Members of the House of Delegates passed a bill that would ban a commonly used second-trimester abortion method.

Senate Bill 10 passed 86 to 13  in the House Monday. 

This bill bans dilation and evacuation, or D&E, abortions. It allows those procedures to take place, however, in cases of medical emergencies. Some OBGYNs have testified before lawmakers that the bill takes away one of the safest options for women and interferes with the doctor-patient relationship.

The bill was on third reading with pending amendments Monday. 

One amendment, offered by Del. Nancy Guthrie, a Democrat from Kanawha County, would have added a provision to allow for an elective D&E abortion if a woman was a victim of incest or rape if the rape is reported to a law-enforcement agency.

However, Del. Patrick Lane, a Republican from Kanawha County, pointed out that this provision was already covered in the bill, and the amendment was rejected on a role call vote of 16 to 82.

Senate Bill 10 now goes to the governor for consideration.

Sales Tax Bill Would End Exemptions

The House Finance Committee has approved a bill that would close loopholes in the state’s sales tax.

As the bill was introduced, House Bill 2704 would have increased the state’s consumer sales tax from 6 to 7 percent as a way to generate new revenues for the state. But in Committee Saturday, the bill took a new form.

“We had a committee substitute that basically took that bill, and we broadened the base, so we added a number of categories that currently aren’t subject to sales tax,” said House Finance Chairman Eric Nelson.

Nelson says by instating a sales tax on exempt industries, like legal, accounting and engineering services, the state can actually reduce its tax rate and still bring in an additional revenue.

The committee version of the bill would reduce the sales tax to 5 percent on January 1, 2017, bringing in an additional $70 million that calendar year. After that, the bill proposes continuing to reduce the sales tax, aiming to reach 4.75 percent by January 1, 2020.

Nelson expects the bill to be up for a vote in the House on Tuesday.

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