West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy Story Archives - Page 2 of 3

Do You Have a License for That?

On this episode of “The Front Porch,” Scott, Laurie and Rick are joined by Ted Boettner of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.

They discuss the effect the increasing number of professions requiring licensure or certification has on the state’s economy. Are all these licenses really necessary? If not, what’s the best way to eliminate the ones we don’t need?

Also on the podcast, a discussion of “Sit-gate” in the 2016 gubernatorial race and more.

Subscribe to “The Front Porch” podcast on iTunes or however you listen to podcasts.

An edited version of “The Front Porch” airs Fridays at 4:50 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s radio network, and the full version is available above.

Share your opinions with us about these issues, and let us know what you’d like us to discuss in the future. Send a tweet to @radiofinn or @wvpublicnews, or e-mail Scott at sfinn @ wvpublic.org

The Front Porch is underwritten by The Charleston Gazette Mail, providing both sides of the story on its two editorial pages. Check it out: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/

W.Va. Higher Education Could See More Funding Cuts

A new report released by the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy shows the state’s cuts to Higher Education are among the worst in the country.

The report shows that funding for Higher Education in West Virginia has been cut considerably since the 2007-2008 school year.

Since then, the average tuition price of attending four-year public colleges in the state has risen by $2,135, or roughly 42 percent. The report says this is significantly faster than the growth in median income.

The report also found for the average student, federal and state aid has not kept pace with the rising costs.

The legislature has returned to Charleston this week to discuss ways to fill a $270 million budget gap for 2017. It’s unclear how much Higher Education may be cut again.

8 Ways Lawmakers Could Balance W.Va.'s Budget

Two weeks after the Legislature left Charleston without approving a budget for the 2017 fiscal year that begins July 1, the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy is urging lawmakers to not just consider cuts when they return to complete the funding bill.

“West Virginia should take a balanced approach that includes additional revenue rather than a cuts only approach that could threaten our state’s struggling economy,” Ted Boettner said Monday.

Boettner is the Executive Director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, a left-leaning think tank based in Charleston that often studies budgetary issues in the state.

Each year, the group releases a detailed analysis of the governor’s budget proposal as well as analysis of the budget ultimately approved by lawmakers. This year, however, a budget has yet to be put to a vote so Boettner and his lead policy analyst, Sean O’Leary, penned eight recommendations for lawmakers when they return for a special budget session in the coming weeks.

Apply the sales tax to digital downloads: Boettner says its unfair that West Virginia retailers should be charged for purchases of movies or music when online operators are exempt. The change could bring in an estimated $10 million per year.
Apply the sales tax more widely to personal services: Barbor shops, salons, tattoo parlors, and private fitness centers among other service business are exempt from the state’s 6 percent sales tax. The WVCBP estimates closing the loopholes could bring in nearly $6 million annually.
Scale back personal income tax exemptions: West Virginia provides all residents with a personal income tax exemption of $2,000. Boettner says abiding by the federal standard and phasing out the exemption for households with joint incomes of more than $150,000 and eliminating the credit for households making $200,000 would bring in nearly $10 million.
Modernize Personal Income Tax Rates and Brackets: The WVCBP recommends lawmakers create an additional tax break for earners who make more than $150,000, assessing a 7.4 percent tax that would result in nearly $45 million in annual income for the state.
Increase tobacco taxes: Boettner backs the Senate approved increase of $1, bringing in $139 million in revenues, but also, according to Boettner, reducing health related costs into the future as more people, especially teens, are deterred from smoking.
Enact a higher severance tax on natural gas liquids and/or natural gas: Despite a Senate approved proposal to decrease the tax by 2 percent over two years, Boettner proposes doubling the tax rate on natural gas liquids from 5 to 10 percent and increase the 5 percent rate on natural gas to 6 percent, bringing in a combine $36 million in the next fiscal year.
Apply the sales tax to telecommunications services: Another Tomblin proposal that went nowhere in either chamber, the WVCBP recommends implementing the 6 percent tax on both cell phone and land lines generating $60 million per year in revenue.
Increase the Soda Tax: Another proposal meant to increase both revenues and health outcomes, Boettner suggests lawmakers bump the various soda taxes for $50.5 million in additional funds brought in each year.

Although the proposal wouldn’t bring in any additional revenue, Boettner and his staff are also backing the implementation of an Earned Income Tax Credit.
Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have such credits which returns tax dollars to low-income, working families, but the recommendation could cost the state some $47 million.

The WVCBP report also passes over what Senate Finance Chair Mike Hall has said is “the most stable” source of revenue for state governments, a food tax, a tax West Virginia lawmakers phased out in the past decade leaving a hole in the state’s budget.

Boettner said the tax break does not necessarily target relief to low-income families because many are exempt from taxes through government assistance programs.

Higher Education Budget Cuts Threaten University Programs

In Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s State of the State address last week, he proposed budget cuts all across the board, and Higher Education is looking at another big reduction this year.

For years, Higher Education in West Virginia has endured budget reductions from the state legislature. Some representatives from the state’s public universities have voiced concern that lawmakers aren’t taking the cuts and their impacts on the system seriously, and with a proposed 14 million dollar cut by Governor Tomblin again this year, they’re not feeling much better.

Concord University President Kendra Boggess, says the continual cuts make it difficult to keep West Virginia schools competitive because they often result in the cutting of classes or student activities.

Lawmakers have consistently stated that higher education is important to have a successful workforce and to improve population growth, so why do these budget cuts keep happening year after year? Boggess argues it has to do with the way the state code is written.

“We are not one of those budgetary areas that can go without being cut,” Boggess explained, “I mean, there are certain things like public education, K-12; in the code it mandates a certain amount be spent on schools of that, those schools, but we’re not in that, and so we are one of the areas that can be cut when there are inadequate budget, when the budget hasn’t been met.”

As a response to the budget cuts, many universities and colleges in the state have increased tuition. Boggess warns tuition hikes could result in losing potential students or force students to drop out.

In a report released last May, the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy said schools have increased tuition by 32 percent since the 2007-2008 school year.

Ted Boettner, the center’s Executive Director, notes that the state has the lowest share of citizens with bachelor’s degrees or higher. He suggests the state raise money by closing tax loopholes.

“If you go get your hair cut today, you’re not going to pay a sales tax at the barber, but if you, you know, buy a book at the bookstore, you’re going to pay sales tax,” Boettner explained, “so I think we have to make sure that we’re treating everybody fairly, and we also, when we look at tax increases that we don’t just think about taxing low and moderate income families, but that we also point to the people who have got the most out of economic growth over the last thirty years, and those are the people in the top 1 percent, top 5 percent; I think we need to ensure that they’re paying an adequate share.”

Lawmakers on the House Finance Committee are planning to look closely at legislation that could help improve the budget for higher education institutions, but many say it’s still too early to say what specifically they’ll propose.

“To balance this budget, I mean there’s revenue measures, there’s cuts, can we move other funds around, we’re going to look at anything,” said House Finance Chairman, Delegate Eric Nelson of Kanawha County, “and you know, we’ve got some very needy colleges that are really producing in certain areas of the state that have been underfunded the last three, four years; up in the Eastern Panhandle, when you talk about Blueridge Community College and Shepherd, and we can just go right across the board, so we’ll look at various options and also ask the universities how they can be creative.”

Nelson adds in a tight budget year, his committee will be looking for creative solutions to fund more than just higher education.

Could Drug Testing Save W.Va. Dollars?

The debate over drug testing public assistance recipients was revisited in an interim session Monday. One of the issues on the table is how to make a pilot program work without costing the state additional dollars that are hard to come by.

The Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability met at the Capitol Monday to continue their discussion on a possible pilot program that would drug test public assistance recipients.

“A lot of people are interested in us having the testing program as one tool to decrease drug abuse in the state,” said Delegate Joe Ellington, a Republican from Mercer County and the chairman of the committee, “I, as a practicing obstetrician, see a lot of babies being born to drugs.”

Ellington says this is where many substance abuse problems start. The babies are born addicted to drugs and could either develop behavioral issues, or become more prone to addictive behaviors in the future.

“The current structure we have to help prevention and training and teaching and rehabilitation does not seem to be solving the problem. We’re not opposed to any of those parts. We want to try to enhance those efforts to decrease drug use, but we’re looking at other ways of identifying who is using drugs, so we can get them into programs.”

At the forefront of the discussion Monday were two bills introduced during the 2015 legislative session.

Senate Bill 348 would’ve created a pilot program for drug screening of cash assistance recipients. House Bill 2021 would’ve implemented drug testing for recipients of federal-state and other state assistance dollars.

While both bills had minor differences, what they did have in common was a requirement to drug test based on reasonable suspicion.

At the end of the 2015 session however, both bills were left on the table.

Now lawmakers are reconsidering the issue for the 2016 session.

The committee posed a few questions to the Department of Health and Human Resources and the Bureau for Public Health. They discussed the anticipated cost of target type enforcements on specific populations, the impact on pregnant women who abuse illicit drugs, and what happens to someone after they’ve tested positive for an illegal substance.

Lawmakers were trying to get a sense of how to potentially re-draft legislation that died last year.

But the question still stands – is drug screening of people in state assistance programs constitutional? And would it actually save the state money by implementing these kinds of tests?

Delegate Ellington thinks there’s a good chance.

“Data I received from DHHR previously, a couple years ago, said the average cost for detox was $230,000 a kid,” he said, “That’s a lot of money that could go back to our schools, to teacher pay, to education, to other services, to rehab, and then you look at the lost productivity and the livelihood of those kids and the future to grow up into, and that’s what we’re looking at – the future of our kids in West Virginia altogether.”

However, Sean O’Leary, a policy analyst at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, says the facts show otherwise – many states that have implemented screening programs in the hopes of saving money, haven’t seen the results.

“Policies like this has really two goals, one to curb substance abuse and two to save state money by not paying people who are using drugs, but when you look at what other states have gone through it’s failed to achieve either one of those goals,” O’Leary said.

Thirteen states have passed legislation to drug test or screen public assistance applicants or recipients, and as of July 2015, at least 18 states have proposed legislation requiring some form of drug testing or screening.

West Virginia is one of those eighteen states.

“Under 1 percent of applicants are testing positive when they do, do these tests, so they’re not saving significant amounts of money,” O’Leary explained, “In some cases, they’re actually spending more money administering and collecting these results or these tests, then they are actually saving money from stopping people from using drugs and collecting assistance.”

O’Leary says there’s a misconception that drug abuse is more prevalent among low income people, when actually substance abuse can affect all walks of life.

Delegate Ellington says he knows finding the right legislation won’t be easy.

“The Senate one was looking at three counties as a smaller group to cut down the expense. The other, the House bill, looks at people that have a higher suspicion of drug use, whether they’ve had a previous conviction, or the children were born addicted to drugs, we know that those are positives, so that’s where the higher suspicion is. We want to just target that part. Will you miss some others, yes, but we’re looking at the numbers, we’re trying to decrease the number of testing that has to be done, and look at the number of individuals we can get back off. So there’s no great way to do it, but we’re trying to make an effort to.”

Next month, the committee on Health and Human Resources Accountability will likely begin to draft legislation that could become the new drug testing bill of 2016.

Report: W.Va. One of Three States Continuing to Cut Higher Education

A report released this month by the national Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looked at states across the country that cut their higher education…

A report released this month by the national Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looked at states across the country that cut their higher education budgets in the wake of the 2008 economic downturn.

Three of 50 states did not make cuts to their systems during that time, North Dakota, Wyoming and Alaska.

The report says now that the economy is picking up, states are restoring funding to colleges and universities, but levels are still well below where they were in 2008.

Thirteen states have continued to cut programs, and West Virginia was among, but holds a special distinction of one of three states that cut higher ed in 2014 and 2015 consecutively. That group includes Kentucky and Oklahoma.

Sean O’Leary, fiscal policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, points to tax cuts approved by lawmakers in recent years as one reason why West Virginia has looked to higher education decreases to help balance the state budget.

O’Leary pointed specifically to the reduction of the state’s corporate net income tax, phasing out of the business franchise tax and removal of the 6 percent food tax.

“Altogether, those cost the state about $360-400 million in lost revenue. That revenue had to be made up somewhere and higher ed is one of the easier places to cut,” he said.

The cuts have resulted in about $2,000 less funding for colleges and universities per student, which has led to a $1,600 rise in tuition on average at state institutions.

O’Leary said that rise in cost deters enrollment, especially for low income students who are vital to the state’s workforce.

“[Low income students] are less likely to go to college, if they do manage to go to college, they’re more likely to graduate with higher levels of debt,” O’Leary said, “and the state finds it harder to economically prosper when it can’t attract the kinds of businesses that are looking for a highly education workforce.”

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission is set to vote on a tuition increase for the West Virginia University system next Friday.

The WVU Board of Governors approved a nearly 10 percent hike for in state students and 5 percent hike for out of state students at their meeting this month.

Any increase of more than 5 percent must be approved by the HEPC.