Interims Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

State Budget Revenue Healthy, Officials Unsure About Tax Cut Trigger

State revenue is solid for the year, and over estimates, but down from last year because of personal income tax reductions and severance taxes.

West Virginia tax collections are higher than estimated, but it is unclear if another personal income tax cut will happen in 2025.

Legislators heard Monday from Mark Muchow, the deputy secretary of the state Department of Revenue, about 2024 budget revenue numbers.

“After nine months, the state has collected more than $4.07 billion. That’s $522.9 million above estimate,” Muchow said. “It’s down from last year by 11.6 percent, which is pretty good considering that we cut the income tax by 21.25 percent and some reductions occurred in the severance tax as well.”

Muchow said personal income tax collections are $184.1 million above estimate for the year. He explained that it is down 9.4 percent year to date over last year.

“Again, 9.4 percent is pretty good considering that we cut the tax rates by 21.25 and the income tax as a whole was over 40 percent of general revenue fund collections,” Muchow said.

Severance taxes on coal, gas and oil were budgeted for just $22.1 million for this fiscal year to date. So far, the state has collected $48.129 million. That sounds promising, except the previous fiscal year brought in nearly $85 million at this point in 2023 and is off more than 43 percent.

Since taking office, Gov. Jim Justice has maintained relatively flat budgets and kept budget estimates low as well. That has guaranteed annual budget surpluses. Over the last few years, they have topped $1 billion each fiscal year.

Last year, when the West Virginia Legislature passed the personal income tax cut, the bill included triggers that would further reduce those taxes. The triggers are tied to budget surpluses.

Del. Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, asked about the trigger mechanism during Monday’s meeting.

“Are you able to project whether the August trigger is going to come into play or not?” he said.

“It’s too early for us to do that type of projection. There’s a lot of revenues outstanding. I do believe that the income tax is going to trend lower over the final, at least over the April, May period, [it] may bounce back in June,” Muchow said. “But there’s too many variables out there to make a good, firm analysis on the trigger.”

“When do you think you’ll comfortably be able to make that calculation?” Rowe asked.

“We will not have a complete idea till the end of June,” Muchow said. “But we’ll have a better idea for the end of April. And even better at the end of May. So by the end of May, things will be a little bit better in focus than they are today.”

“So if we were to have a special session in May, and that has been discussed, then you may have the numbers you need to calculate whether the August trigger will come into play?” Rowe asked.

“We’ll have a better idea, but not a perfect idea,” Muchow said. “Again, there’s a number of variables outstanding that we’d have to consider in that equation.”

The Legislature is expected to return to Charleston for a special session on the budget in mid-May following the election but before the end of the month.

Legislators Hear Update On Plan To Address Teacher Shortage

Now in its second year, the West Virginia Grow Your Own program aims to start students interested in becoming teachers on the path to certification in high school.

Updated on Tuesday Dec. 12, 2023 at 9:30 a.m.

A program aimed at tackling the state’s teacher shortage is growing.

Now in its second year, the West Virginia Grow Your Own program aims to start students interested in becoming teachers on the path to certification in high school. Through the program, interested students begin taking dual-enrollment courses that count towards a teaching degree.

The initiative is one piece of the state’s attempts to address a shortage of more than 1,700 certified teachers across the state.

Jeff Hunter, coordinator of educator preparation for the West Virginia Department of Education, told the legislators of the Joint Standing Committee on Education Sunday evening the 33 participating counties are now averaging 11 students in Grow Your Own.

“We need to have somewhere between 10 and 19 students per grade level participating if we’re going to attack that 1705 teaching teacher deficit that we’re facing now,” he said.

Hunter said the total number of students participating is 345 students up from 235 students last year. He broke down some of the demographics of the participants, including the fact that only 16 percent are male.

“It’s still predominantly a female oriented system,” Hunter said. “It is closely representing what the current teaching population looks like for gender. It does not represent our student population, so we need to have more men focused in education.”

On a more positive note, Hunter said 28 percent of Grow Your Own students are first generation post-secondary attendants.

“That’s incredible, this is breaking cycles,” he said. “This is getting students into an opportunity to do something different for their community, and they will represent their community very well.”

Del. Heather Tully, R-Nicholas, asked Hunter why more counties were not participating, particularly population-dense counties like Harrison, Monongalia, Raleigh and Wood counties. She suggested that perhaps superintendents were unaware of the potential for establishing a teacher pipeline.

“Do we survey students in all of the counties about expressed interest in a program such as this?” Tully asked. “So, say maybe the program is not offered in those four population dense counties though, do we know if students would be interested?”

Hunter said students in non-participating counties were not surveyed but was open to the idea.

“I think that would be telling for the superintendent to understand what their pipeline should and could look like,” he said.

Several legislators asked about tracking students that do not complete or leave the program before being certified as teachers- since the cost of dual credit courses in high school is subsidized by the state.

Hunter said they are tracking completion numbers, but also pointed out they do not have complete enrollment numbers from universities to know how many teachers are leaving more traditional routes.

“It’s not a bad thing if a student decides teaching is not for them,” he said. ”We’ve seen things happen in schools with teachers who should not have made that choice for their route. And we want to encourage them to make the best decision possible for them.”

***Editor’s Note: This story was updated with a correction. Several statements were incorrectly attributed to Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, but should have been attributed to Del. Heather Tully, R-Nicholas.

Legislators Learn About Updated Federal Forms, Bullying By The Numbers

A federal college financial aid form is being simplified, but the timeline is causing concern and the state education department has new bullying statistics.

A federal college financial aid form is being simplified, but the timeline is causing concern.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the FAFSA, unlocks both federal and state financial aid for students.

The 10-page document can be daunting for both students and parents.

Sarah Armstrong Tucker, chancellor of the Higher Education Policy Commission, told the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability Sunday the form asked for information that was difficult to find, more so for students in non-traditional situations such as foster care, guardianships or homelessness.

“Lots of people felt that the FAFSA was so complicated that it made a lot of students opt out from going to college,” she said. ”There were a lot of kids who just didn’t have access to the information that they needed in order to fill out that FAFSA so that they could get the federal financial aid and then indeed get some of that state aid.“

Tucker told the commission that for the past three years, the U.S. Department of Education has been working to simplify the form. One of the expected changes will allow applicants to automatically connect their tax documents to the FAFSA.

“I don’t have to, as a parent, go to my IRS form, find all those numbers, put those numbers in the right boxes,” Tucker said. “It makes sure everything’s correct, which will be wonderful and great and will absolutely simplify the process, right? But that’s been a challenge, trying to get those systems that have never talked to each other before linked together. That has been really, really difficult.”

She said the changes are welcome, but the new form has yet to be released and that is causing delays for college applicants.

“Typically we would have had October the first of 2023 through now for our high school seniors who have been filling out that document. They have not been,” Tucker said. “Moreover, this is a new FAFSA. So we haven’t seen it.”

Tucker says the new form is expected to be released December 31, and she warned legislators to expect communication from their constituents.

“Once this rolls out in January, there’s going to be some concern from folks about what this looks like and deadlines for our own financial aid programs,” she said.

Tucker flagged one final potential complication regarding a calculation of the expected family contribution to higher education expenses.

“That tells us how much money a family should be able to contribute to a student loan to college,” she said. “Those tables include things like inflationary rates. Those tables haven’t been updated since 2020. So the recent inflationary rates that we’ve had are not included in those tables. And we don’t believe they’re going to be included probably until next year.”

The lowest income students are still expected to receive maximum Pell grants, but Tucker said students from higher income families may be leaving money on the table. Ultimately she said her office will not know until the new form is published, but the HEPC is trying to be proactive and anticipate changes in the interim.

Harassment and Intimidation

Jeff Kelley, officer of accountability and assessment for the West Virginia Department of Education presented a harassment, intimidation and bullying report for the 2022-23 school year to the meeting. The report showed that referrals for harassment, intimidation, or bullying behaviors accounted for 2.1 percent of all student disciplinary referrals across the state.

“I think it’s about 18 and a half incidents per day across the state,” Kelley said.

Kelley said middle school aged students accounted for the vast majority of harassment, intimidation, or bullying referrals, seven out of every 10 originating from sixth through ninth grades.

Male students were the majority of referrals at 74 percent. The data also showed discrepancies based on race.

“White students represented in discipline data at a slightly lower rate than their representation in the specific population, that’s 82 versus 88 percent,” Kelley said. “Black students and multiracial students were present at a higher rate than their respective population representations.”

Black students account for 4 percent of the state’s student population, but represented 10 percent of referrals for harassment, intimidation, or bullying. Multiracial students account for 7 percent of the state’s student population, but also represented 10 percent of referrals for harassment, intimidation, or bullying.

“A risk ratio calculation indicates the black students to be about 2.25 times more likely to experience those referrals,” Kelley said. “With multiracial students, that number is 1.5 times.”

Students with disabilities, or who were eligible for special education services accounted for one third of all referrals for harassment, intimidation, or bullying.

“Students with disabilities were about two times more likely to be referred,” Kelley said.

Committee Chair Del. Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, asked if Kelley thought interventions were proving effective in stopping students from repeating the offenses. Kelley said he believed the data supported that notion.

“What we’re seeing, as I think schools and counties are taking proactive approaches, they’re educating students, staff and parents about ‘What is bullying? What’s it look like? What are the signs?’ and when we see these things, what is the appropriate way to respond?” he said.

Funding Gap Forces Suspension Of Teacher Scholarship

A competitive scholarship to encourage high schoolers to become teachers isn’t accepting applications due to a lack of funding.

Members of the Joint Standing Committee on Education learned about the suspended Underwood-Smith scholarship program during their interim meeting at Wheeling Park High School Monday.

The Underwood-Smith Teaching Scholars Program is a competitive scholarship for recent high school graduates wanting to become teachers, particularly in an area of critical need like math, science, elementary education or special education.

But Sarah Tucker, chancellor of the Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC), told lawmakers the scholarship is not accepting new applicants.

“The idea was that you would step in each cohort,” she said. “We didn’t need the total fiscal note for all four cohort years in year one, because we only have the freshmen. You funded the freshmen in year one. And year two, you funded the freshmen and the sophomores, and year three, you were going to fund the freshmen, the sophomores and the juniors, but that third year didn’t get funded.”

Tucker said students who have already received the scholarships will not be affected by the funding issues.

“I can get us through the group of students that we have, but I can’t add on any additional students,” she said.

Governor Considers Special Session Request

Gov. Jim Justice has addressed a request from the House of Delegates Democratic Caucus to call a special session of the legislature next month.

Last week, the House of Delegates Democratic Caucus delivered a letter to Gov. Jim Justice urging him to call a Special Legislative Session during the upcoming interim meetings Aug. 6 – Aug. 8.

In the letter the caucus suggests the session focus on the state’s corrections and foster care employment shortfalls as well as what they call a higher education funding crisis.

During an administrative briefing Wednesday afternoon, Justice gave his position on the three issues, saying he supports doing any and everything to improve foster care. He also said the state needs to help out its universities, but the economics of the situation need to be better understood.

“The shortfall in regard to corrections, I’ve sent it up twice,” Justice said. “Really, and truly, this should have been done a long, long, long time ago. So don’t anybody now ask me from the legislature side, as to ‘We really want you to send us and send this off” and everything. For God’s sakes, alive! It should have already been done.”

The governor did not rule out the possibility of calling a special session and says he will evaluate it more seriously when his chief of staff is back in Charleston.

In response to a question, Justice said that the August interim session would be the right time to call a special session.

“The August interim is the time that we should do this. We ought to do it right now,” he said. “That’s just all there is to it.”

NUCOR And State Legislative Interims On This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, we have an update on the NUCOR steel plant in Mason County and reports from May interims of the West Virginia Legislature.

On this West Virginia Morning, we have an update on the NUCOR steel plant in Mason County and reports from May interims of the West Virginia Legislature.

The NUCOR steel plant in Mason County is expected to be an economic driver for the entire region. Eric Douglas has more.

Lawmakers heard from the office of West Virginia’s Foster Care Ombudsman during Monday’s interim session. Emily Rice has more.

Lawmakers received an update Sunday on an initiative that brings retired personnel back into schools with a shortage of staff. Shepherd Snyder has more.

Legislators are starting to prepare for the implementation of the state’s new early childhood literacy requirements. Chris Schulz has more.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Concord University and Shepherd University.

Caroline MacGregor is our assistant news director and produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning