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Hope Scholarship Applicants Top 6,000 In Second Enrollment Session

More than 6,000 West Virginia students’ families have signed up for the Hope Scholarship savings account that allows them to take state money and apply it to tuition for private schools.

More than 6,000 West Virginia students’ families have signed up for the Hope Scholarship savings account that allows them to take state money and apply it to tuition for private and homeschool.

State Treasurer Riley Moore, whose office administers the school choice program, spoke to Randy Yohe about the process of getting and using a Hope Scholarship and the growing numbers who want to opt out of the public school system.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Yohe: You’ve got your final application numbers in. This is really the first, full Hope Scholarship enrollment session that ended on May 15 with more than 6,000 applications. Was that number expected?

Moore: It kind of tracked where we thought it could be. We came in at 6,323 students. Most of that growth came from kindergartners, and that’s where we saw most of the growth from the numbers in the prior year. To be clear, these applications that we received include students that are currently Hope Scholarship students because they must reapply every year. The application deadline ended on May 15. That does not mean that you need to be approved by May 15. You just had to submit your application by May 15. My office has 45 days to approve that application. It generally never takes that long.

Yohe: Do you expect that number to continue to increase?

Moore: I think it will increase on the kindergarten side. I estimate it is probably between 1,500 and 2,000 students a year. We’ll have, in addition to that, maybe some others wanting to leave public school. We’re not seeing huge numbers of folks leaving public school since the initial tranche of that was in the year prior. Where you’re going to see a large number of people come into this program is 2026. That, by law, is when the program opens up to everybody. That means current private school children and current homeschooled children could then apply for Hope Scholarship in 2026. Currently, you have to either be a rising kindergartener, or in public school for 45 days to apply.

Yohe: If my figures are right, the more than 5,000 students that you believe will be eligible will cost the program more than $22 million. What is the Hope Scholarships budget?

Moore: It’s roughly around there. Because we have an estimate. The long term budget number on this, once it opens up in 2026, is probably $150 million a year.

Yohe: What’s the main reason that you see families applying for scholarships?

Moore: I think people want to exercise some educational options and choices. This is about educational freedom. It’s about individuals being able to utilize their tax dollars in the manner that they see fit to educate their children. Some people certainly want to remain and continue in their public school system and they like the school that they’re in. Some would like to send their kids to, say a christian school, a catholic school or what have you, some type of parochial education, and I think that’s great.

Yohe: I’ve noticed a number of church marquees that say apply for the Hope Scholarship, both in Huntington where I live and around the state.

Moore: Catholic schools like the ones in Huntington or Charleston, in Morgantown, Martinsburg, Wheeling, they’re everywhere. Using those Catholic schools as an example, there is a capacity, right? I mean, they can’t take unlimited amounts of children. So, I think that’s going to be kind of a natural backstop in terms of an explosion in growth. I do think it will probably spur growth, perhaps in this Catholic school system over time. You’re talking about having to build new buildings and things of that nature. But then also you have the ability to homeschool your children with these dollars as well. And we have seen some individuals decide to exercise that, and I think that you’ll have some more homeschool families apply for this in the future as well, particularly after 2026.

Yohe: We’ve also seen a statewide advertising campaign. I’m seeing a lot of billboards, and heard some advertising on the radio. I’m not sure if it’s in television media or newspapers, but talk about the impetus for your Hope Scholarship advertising campaign.

Moore: That is actually outside organizations that have been advertising this program. We’ve not done a tremendous amount of advertising in this office, just because we’ve seen outside groups doing it. As good stewards of the taxpayer dollars, we didn’t feel like we needed to double down on money that’s already being spent.

Yohe: There was a mention at the state Board of Education meeting last week that there was possibly some Hope Scholarship money that was used out of state.

Moore: That is actually permissible. The way the legislation was enacted allows Hope Scholarship funds to be used out of state, there is a provision that allows for that. Let’s say, if you live in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, there’s not a lot of private school options there. There’s actually no Catholic High School in the entire Eastern Panhandle. So, West Virginia residents can send their children to out of state schools with Hope Scholarship money.

Yohe: The scholarship amount varies every year. For the 2023-24 school year, it will be $4,488.82. What do those funds basically go towards?

Moore: Generally, it’s going towards tuition, but it can also apply to school uniforms, books, tutors. We’ve talked about homeschool, so that entire curriculum, which would also involve materials and books and things of that nature. There are qualified expenses that are approved by the board around those that have scholarships. You can’t just spend it on whatever you want. These dollars go into a digital wallet, we don’t send out checks for people to just go ahead and buy whatever they think is permissible. There’s a safeguard measure in this, and this is audited internally as well.

Hope Scholarship Program On The Rise, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, the Hope Scholarship program allows West Virginia students to apply state money toward private and parochial school tuition. And state officials say the program is growing.

On this West Virginia Morning, more than 6,000 West Virginia students have signed up for a $4,500 Hope Scholarship savings account that allows them to take state money and apply it to tuition in private schools.

Randy Yohe spoke with state Treasurer Riley Moore, whose office administers the school choice program, on the growing numbers who want to opt out of the public school system.

Also, in this show, one of the places struck by the floods last July was the Hindman Settlement School, home to the Appalachian Writers Workshop. Musician, poet and West Virginia Wesleyan professor Doug Van Gundy was there and wrote a poem about it.

Inside Appalachia Producer Bill Lynch spoke with Van Gundy about the poem and writing about tragedy.

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.

Eric Douglas is our news director and produced this episode.

Chuck Anziulewicz hosted 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

Amidst Market Uncertainty, State’s Banks Remain Stable

News from the world of banking over the last few weeks has been unsettling, both at home and abroad, but how has that affected West Virginia’s financial institutions?

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and its subsequent bailout by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), as well as the insolvency of several other banks across the country, has created worries about the stability of the entire banking industry.

Brant Hammer, associate professor of finance at West Virginia University, said Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was in a uniquely unstable position due, in no small part, to its role in the tech industry.

“With Silicon Valley Bank, they had about 50 percent of their deposits concentrated in these tech firms,” Hammer said. “That customer base is not only concentrated in that one industry, but most of those deposits are large. The vast majority of them were uninsured deposits greater than $250,000. In fact, 97 percent of them. There can’t be five banks in the country that have more uninsured deposits than Silicon Valley did.”

As Hammer noted, $250,000 is the maximum bank deposit that the FDIC will insure.

There are a lot of other factors at play in SVB’s collapse, including rising interest rates and poor management practices. SVB got itself into a position where depositors lost confidence and rushed to pull their money out before the bank collapsed completely. This is commonly known as a “bank run.”

Hammer said that unlike the banking crashes in 2008, where credit was the underlying issue, SVB and other institutions that have needed help over the past few weeks faced a crisis of cash flow. Think of the Frank Capra classic, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” but with billions in venture capital funds.

“It didn’t start a week ago,” Hammer said. “The primary difference between what’s happening now and what happened in ‘08 is that what happened in ‘08 was a credit crisis, it was an issue of credit quality, meaning loans, going bad, people defaulting and that leading to losses of banks, which led to insolvency, which led to bailouts. This is the exact opposite. This is a liquidity crisis. This is a problem not of assets being worthless. This is a problem of assets of banks, essentially not having enough cash on hand to meet deposit withdrawals.”

Hammer points out that Silicon Valley Bank’s fate has spread to other institutions because people started paying attention to banks in similar positions, overinvested in unstable industries like tech and crypto, with too many uninsured deposits. As it relates to West Virginia’s banks, Hammer said they’re much more traditional and well-positioned to handle market volatility. His concern is what happens to the industry after things settle back down.

“I’m not worried about this problem resulting in people in West Virginia losing their deposits,” Hammer said. “I’m worried about this problem leading to an even more rapid consolidation of the banking industry, because it is the large banks that are benefiting. I just saw a headline this morning that just since the Silicon Valley crash, Bank of America has seen an inflow of $15 billion in deposits. It’s leading to a flight of deposits out of regional community banks and into the big four.”

Those big four banks are JPMorgan, Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank.

Local leaders agree with Hammer that the state’s financial industry is generally insulated from what’s happening. On March 14, State Treasurer Riley Moore released a statement assuring West Virginians that the state’s $10 billion Consolidated Fund of short-term investments for the state and local governments had no exposure to SVB or other banks in crisis.

“There’s some unique things that are happening with SVB, Signature and some of those other cryptos. Part of that as well, is that at times, as we’ve seen, there’s a lot of volatility there,” Moore said.

Hammer and Moore both agreed that SVB’s uniquely large deposits of venture capital funds didn’t allow the bank to build a basis of loans and other, traditional capital diversification.

“Taking all these deposits as it relates to venture capital, where they’re not able to do capital formation and raise more money around a given venture, when they need to draw down cash immediately, that’s how you run into some of these problems,” Moore said. “Obviously, our banks here in West Virginia, are well diversified in terms of their deposits, in terms of the loans that they do. They’ve worked very diligently to hedge risk.”

Moore said that West Virginia is lucky to have a healthy variety of banking institutions – more than 40 – across the state, and specifically more community banks that focus on local relationships and businesses.

“We have a lot of community banks here in the state, I mean, tons of small community banks, that are really a hub and a central linchpin for the communities in which they operate in,” Moore said. “I think West Virginia does have a healthy diversification as it relates to community banks, middle market type banks. We’re very fortunate, I think, to have a very healthy community banking sector, as well as middle market banks.”

Adding to a well-diversified financial environment, Moore adds that the state’s banking system simply isn’t involved in the high-risk industries that made up the majority of SVB and Signature’s portfolios, things like venture capitalism, speculative tech startups and cryptocurrency.

“It’s a diverse type of business. Obviously, there’s a lot of banks here that are involved in the fossil fuel industry, to one extent or another, since that’s so large in the state of West Virginia, but it’s also a lot of small business,” Moore said.

That stability is reassuring because for now, there’s little that can be done on the state level.

“Our hands are kind of tied when the federal government is deciding to continue to raise interest rates. We’re all subject to that, everybody in the country is,” Moore said. “Obviously, that’s a challenge that we all face. I’m here to support the community banks and the banking industry at large in the state of West Virginia anyway that I can. But our hands are tied to a degree unfortunately, on some of this. There’s not too much we can actually do.”

An official in Gov. Jim Justice’s office said, “the West Virginia Division of Financial Institutions is closely monitoring developments together with state and federal counterparts.”

Second Year Of Hope Scholarship Applications Now Open

The application period for this year’s Hope Scholarship program opened Wednesday for the 2023-2024 school year.

The program provides state funding for West Virginia residents interested in alternative schooling methods, like private schools or homeschooling for their children.

It’s the second year these funds have been made available after a state law creating the program was passed in 2021.

Funds made available to first-year applicants were sent at the beginning of the year, after they were postponed when an injunction made in Kanawha Circuit Court halted the program last May. The injunction argued the program unconstitutionally diverted funds from the state’s public school system.

“We saw tremendous interest in this program for the current school year, despite unfortunate legal delays in the program’s implementation,” state treasurer and Hope Scholarship Board chairman Riley Moore said in an announcement. “We look forward to providing this program for the full school year that begins this fall.”

Following the lifting of the injunction in October, nearly 1,800 students and their families received vouchers to cover educational expenses.

Students from kindergarten through 12th grade are eligible for the funds. A notice of intent to participate is also required for families to file with their county superintendent.
The application period is open from March 1 until May 15. Applications are available online.

Kentucky Sanctions Chase, BlackRock Over Fossil Fuels

Kentucky Treasurer Allison Ball published a list Tuesday of 11 financial institutions she has determined are engaged in a boycott of fossil fuels.

It overlaps with a list of five financial institutions flagged by West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore last summer.

BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase are on both lists. West Virginia’s list also includes Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo. None of those three is on Kentucky’s list.

Kentucky’s list also includes Citigroup, HSBC and BNP Paribas, among others.

Both states’ legislatures last year passed bills aimed at denying state contracts to banks that are perceived to shun fossil fuel investments. It’s not clear how either state treasurer’s office made that determination for the financial institutions they listed.

Most banks have environmental, social and governance, or ESG goals.

Both states passed the law to protect their coal industry. Coal production and employment have fallen precipitously in Kentucky. As recently as 2011, Kentucky mines employed as many as 18,000 workers and produced 100 million tons of coal a year.

Now, coal mines employ fewer than 5,000 workers and produce only 25 million tons a year.

Kentucky, long the nation’s first or second coal producing state, has fallen to seventh.

The decline is largely the result of electric utilities switching from coal to natural gas.

State Treasurer Riley Moore Announces Run For U.S. Congress

Speaking from his home in Harpers Ferry on Monday, the former state delegate said he will run as a Republican in 2024 for the 2nd Congressional District seat.

Speaking from his home in Harpers Ferry on Monday, the former state delegate said he will run as a Republican in 2024 for the 2nd Congressional District seat now held by Rep. Alex Mooney, who announced last week he’s running for U.S. Senate in 2024.

“My track record speaks for itself,“ Moore said. “I’ve been a conservative fighter as your state treasurer, and that is exactly what I’m going to do when I go to Washington.”

Moore said he will continue his conservative fight in support of fossil fuels and national energy independence.

“I’ve been fighting the woke corporations, woke capitalism and the ESG movement in this country. I was the first state treasurer in this country to divest BlackRock out of our state treasury funds,” Moore said. “I was the first state treasurer to come up with a restricted financial institution list that put woke banks on it for boycotting the fossil fuel industry in the state of West Virginia.”

As state shepherd of the Hope Scholarship Program, Moore said he will push to create national educational savings accounts across America.

“This should be a federal program, we must have school choice for all of our children. You see the national test scores, they are abysmal,” Moore said. “Fourth grade and eighth grade reading and math has never been lower. We have to put our children first. There’s a war going on with the family in this country, and we have to be able to give them choice over indoctrination.”

Moore said he’d fight to better train a United States workforce to bring jobs back home from China. He proposed putting more tariffs on Chinese products to help correct a trade imbalance.

Moore continues a West Virginia Republican family political legacy as the nephew of U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and the grandson of three-time Gov. Arch Moore.