Jason Pizatella Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Democratic Governor-Elect Names Republican Legislative Director

With his inauguration Monday, Gov.-elect Jim Justice is announcing more staff appointments in his new administration.

Justice announced Friday former state Senator and long-time House of Delegates member Bob Ashely will take over as his legislative director, working directly with lawmakers to push the governor’s bill through the legislative process.

Ashley is a Republican joining the Democratic administration. He was appointed to the state Senate in 2015, but lost his election for the seat in November.

Justice also announced the naming of two other key positions in his office.

Jason Pizatella will return to Charleston to serve as deputy chief of staff under Nick Casey. Pizatella previously held the post in Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s administration then went on to serve as Secretary of Administration before leaving the Capitol to become president of the Morgantown Area Chamber of Commerce last year.

Derek Scarbro will serve as Justice’s director of intergovernmental affairs. Scarbro was Justice’s campaign manager.

Governor's Cabinet Member to Run for Auditor

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s cabinet secretary is running for state auditor in West Virginia.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports this is the first time Acting Administration Secretary Jason Pizatella has run for public office.

Pizatella has worked for Govs. Bob Wise, Joe Manchin and Tomblin. He has also served as legislative liaison to the state Senate and House of Delegates.

The 33-year-old Democrat seeks to replace longtime State Auditor Glen Gainer III, who announced last month that he wouldn’t seek another four-year term.

The newspaper reports Pizatella, who is a Fairmont native, is the first Democrat to enter the auditor’s race.

He plans to resign as administration secretary later this month after he files official paperwork to run for auditor.

The West Virginia auditor serves as the state’s official bookkeeper.

Governor asking lawmakers to consider legislation in case of future government shutdown

A representative of Governor Tomblin reported to legislators no programs had to be cut and no employees had to be laid off as a result of the federal government shutdown, but with an agreement from Congress that only funds the government through the first of the year, the administration is still worried the state could run into the same issues again.

The governor and his staff are now asking state lawmakers to consider taking legislative action to prevent future problems when there’s a lack of federal funding.

“I think it’s safe to say we’re relying on an unreliable partner,” said Governor Tomblin’s Deputy Chief of Staff Jason Pizatella as he stood before a joint Finance Committee meeting in the House Chamber to describe the impact the federal shutdown had on the state.

While Pizatella said West Virginians who rely on federal and state funded services saw almost no changes in their benefits, if the shutdown had continued through the end of the month it would have been a different story.

“What we’ve tried to do in the governor’s office is try to figure out exactly how state government can insulate itself from the instability that is currently present in Congress and throughout the federal government,” he said.

As the governor and his staff prepared for the shutdown, two issues arose- continuing to fund federal services and paying employees whose salaries are reimbursed by the federal government.

As far as programs and services go, legislators were told the Departments of Health and Human Resources and Education would have been most affected because they rely so heavily on federal aide. In fact, that federal aide is larger than the state’s annual budget.

According to the state Department of Revenue, West Virginia’s general revenue budget is about $4.2 billion annually. The federal government gives the state nearly $4.8 billion in funding for programs. While some are funded through legislation, like the Affordable Care Act, others are funded through federal appropriations which don’t go through during a shut down.

Director of the state Budget Office Mike McKown said Medicaid is one of those programs and in order for it to continue in a long term shutdown, the state would have had to cover the federal portion.

“Medicaid alone would take about $200 million a month. Today, we had $50 million cash. I mean, it would last one week,” McKown said after the meeting Monday.

McKown said Medicaid is just one of the hundreds of state programs paid for in some part by the federal government.
He said there’s no way the state could keep up the payments and there’s no guarantee West Virginia would be repaid for the money spent.

Secretary of Revenue Bob Kiss said the governor asked agencies to begin prioritizing federally funded programs in case the money would run out, but that money not only pays for the programs, it also pays for the employees who operate them, either by reimbursing the state for all or part of their salaries.

“Because if we’re going to all of a sudden be faced with a situation where we simply don’t have the resources to fund positions that are in part or entirely funded with federal dollars, there’s going to be some serious ramifications and somebody is going to have to make some decisions,” Kiss said.

“You can make the argument right now that without statutory authority right now it’s unclear who or if anybody has the authority to make those decisions.”

Kiss said that’s where state lawmakers come into play.

“We don’t have a furlough statute,” he said. “You can lay them off so to speak. That authority is there, but to furlough them with the concept that they’re being let go without pay, but they’re basically retaining their status as an employee when you have the cash available to pay them as opposed to terminating their employment.”

Kiss said to just layoff workers would create issues with vacation time, sick leave and even retirement benefits when they’re brought back to work so the governor is asking lawmakers to consider enacting furlough legislation to avoid those problems in the future.

“I think having gone through this exercise hopefully will be beneficial. I think the legislature is taking the time to deliberately think about these issues,” Kiss said. “I don’t think it would be that complicated to come up with a statute. The federal government has a statute and I don’t think it would be that complicated to come up with a similar one.”

Kiss added, however, the state will hopefully be able to avoid any major issues should a federal shutdown occur in January because the legislature will be in session and available to take necessary actions.

Should the state keep tolls on the W.Va. Turnpike after 2019?

As the state moves closer to paying off its bond debt associated with the West Virginia Turnpike, lawmakers are starting to consider what to do with the roadway. The ideas being discussed in the halls of the Capitol, however, always make their way a few miles down I-77 to the state Parkways Authority’s headquarters.

A bill originally introduced during the 2013 Legislative Session is being hashed out by legislators during interim meetings. Co-sponsored by Senator Bill Cole of Mercer County, he says it helps diminish the burden on the Turnpike counties.

“Senator Chafin and I introduced a bill that would try and take a small piece, less than 4 percent of the total revenue proceeds of the Turnpike and invest it back in the counties that the Turnpike runs through,” Cole said after an interim meeting in July.

The total price tag: $4 million, one million each for Kanawaha, Raleigh, Mercer and Fayette counties to invest in infrastructure or economic development projects.

But because of the contract attached to the bond, revenues brought in by tolls can only be used to pay off the debt. That debt is set to be settled in 2019, but Governor Tomblin’s designee to the Parkways Authority Jason Pizatella said until then, it’s illegal for the state to touch that money.

“We could not implement the proposal that Senator Chafin has discussed and I’m sure will offer during the 2014 regular session,” Pizatella said. “So, it would be up to him to work with the Parkways Authority to craft a proposal that we could realistically implement.”

In other words, realistically, that proposal would have to be implemented after 2019.

But just because the Parkways Authority Board Members are saying the state would have to wait before the counties could receive funds from Turnpike revenues, doesn’t mean they don’t support it.

“When the bonds are paid off, I wanted to keep that money in this end of the state,” said Board member and lifelong Mercer County resident Bill Seaver during a Parkways Authority meeting Thursday.

Seaver said he presented a plan to the Governor to continue the tolls on the Turnpike, in part to help the state maintain the road, but also to put money toward southern infrastructure projects.

“When the tolls are paid off in 2019, I want to keep the tolls on the Turnpike,” he said. “We have to to maintain it. The Department of Transportation can’t take care of it, but I want the excess money when we’re not paying the bonds anymore spent at a point from Charleston south to the tunnels the width of West Virginia, just on projects in southern West Virginia.”

He said projects like completing major roadways and replacing bridges throughout the region are crucial to the economic future of the entire state, and believed the proposal by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Highways is just not a viable option.

“They’re not going to be able to come in and raise the tolls on the Turnpike and then take that money and spend it all over the state. I just don’t see that happening. I don’t think the Governor would put that forth and have us sell more bonds to go off into the future,” Seaver said, “but I think if we do this we can take certain amounts of money for major projects, complete the part in Mercer County, pay for it over a five year period with toll revenues and other projects throughout the southern end of the state.”

Pizatella, who also serves as Chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission, said he heard the concerns Seaver and many other southern West Virginians have about the Turnpike and tried to work a compromise in to the Blue Ribbon’s proposal to the Governor.

“As part of our proposal, 25 percent of the bond revenue that would be realized from using the Turnpike to fund other projects would stay in southern West Virginia and stay in the four counties because we think that the citizens and motorists of southern West Virginia deserve that money,” he said. “So, I think that we will be able to find some middle ground as we go forward with this proposal.”

Pizatella said they have plenty of time to find that so-called middle ground because, again, nothing new can be done with toll revenues until 2019.

Seaver said he would also like to see the Governor commit $75,000 each year for the next six years to the four counties as a reimbursement for their toll costs when bussing students to and from school and to help seniors paying tolls as they travel for access to healthcare.

Commission to recommend raising tolls, fees in lieu of raising taxes for roads

The Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Highways has spent the past year meeting with consultants, engineers and lobbyists as well as touring the state to hear from the public, in the hopes of finding new ways to fund state roads. Commissioners will send their recommendations to Governor Tomblin by the end of the month, claiming to have found more than $1 billion in new income and savings.

Through recommendations for new revenue, efficiencies and innovations, the commission’s final report is expected to come up with $1.1 billion of the $1.3 billion West Virginia would need to not only maintain, but also expand the state road system.

“The recommendations that we made don’t raise taxes at all,” said Jason Pizatella, Governor Tomblin’s deputy chief of staff, who serves as the commission’s chair.

But that doesn’t mean consumers won’t see any increases in what they’re paying now.

“Well, when I say taxes, I’m referring to the motor fuel excise tax. The gas tax,” Pizatella said. “The tax that everyone that came out to the public meetings complained about and said that they did not want to see increased.”

So instead, the commission is recommending an increase in DMV and motor vehicle licensing fees that will be adjusted every other year. The increases are expected to amount to $77 million in additional revenue for the road fund.

Next, commissioners recommend an annual registration fee on alternative fuel vehicles- namely vehicles that aren’t paying the gasoline tax when they fill up at the pump.

The proposed fee is $200 ever year for alternatively fueled vehicles and $100 for vehicles that use a combination of alternative fuels and gasoline or natural gas. The recommendation is expected to bring in a total of $1 million a year in revenue.

Another revenue sources includes reallocating money spent on car parts and services from the general revenue fund, where it goes now, to the road fund.

“Its $25 million estimated that the road fund doesn’t currently get,” Pizatella said, “and it’s the commission’s recommendation that those particular items like parts and batteries and services and tires that we use for our vehicles should go to the road fund.”

Moving those funds from the general revenue to the roads fund, however, would create a $25 million hole in state funding during an already pressing economic time. Of course, commissioners aren’t responsible for making a recommendation on how to fill that gap.

The commission hasn’t just focused on revenue, though. They’ve also looked for efficiencies within the state Division of Highways to save money.

Department of Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox, who oversees the DOH, brought forward five potential areas of future cost savings, including converting the fleet to natural gas vehicles and reducing middle management positions through retirements, but he said most of the cost savings in the department have already been realized. That resulted in millions moved from various parts of the department into the road fund.

“Being able to reallocate $180 million into our construction program within a budget that has pretty much been flat over the past decade has been quite an accomplishment,” Mattox told his fellow commissioners. “I don’t know if there’s any really large savings left within the agency that we could put towards the construction program.”

Pizatella said there are still some cost saving changes the department can make, they will just result in less of a revenue bump for the road fund than in the past.

Recommendations also include future studies on topics like using severance taxes from a possible Future Fund to pay for infrastructure, replacing the gasoline tax with a broad-based sales tax, and a possible federal sales tax on Internet purchases that will result in state money.

“One thing is not going to solve it, but I think it’s a combination of all the things that we heard hear (during the meeting), both innovations and efficiencies that will allow us to chart a path towards trying to make a dent in our needs for highway infrastructure,” Pizatella said.

“We cannot as West Virginians to pay more to solve a problem that did not occur overnight so it will not be solved overnight. So, it’s a step process. There’s no silver bullet, but we think it’s something that the legislature and the governor will be able to consider.”

At their next meeting, the commission will discuss an additional source of revenue, a phased increase of tolls on the state turnpike. The fee, however, would be frozen for five years for instate drivers using an E-Z Pass to pay their tolls.

That discussion is set for September 17th where the commission also plans to finalize their remaining recommendations. Pizatella expects to have the commission’s report to the governor by the end of the month.