By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON, W.Va.— The budget proposal handed to lawmakers Wednesday night by Gov. Jim Justice raised several questions for the leader of the Senate Finance Committee Thursday morning.
Members of the Senate Finance Committee heard a report Thursday on Justice’s budget bill for fiscal year 2025 beginning in July from representatives of the West Virginia Department of Revenue.
Justice presented the budget bill Wednesday during his State of the State address. Justice kept the fiscal year 2025 general revenue budget flat at $5.265 billion, a 7.8% increase, or $381 million, from the $4.884 billion FY 2024 budget that went into effect in July.
The governor is asking the Legislature to approve more than $300 million in supplemental appropriations out of the current fiscal year general revenue budget. Requests include $200 million for the School Building Authority to approve remaining school construction requests and $5 million for the SBA for public charter school seed funding, $53 million for the two state-owned psychiatric hospitals, $10 million for the Posey Perry Emergency Food Fund, and $30 million for the state’s nursing workforce expansion initiative.
The budget bill includes more than $629 million in the surplus section. Surplus tax revenue remaining at the end of the current fiscal year at the end of June would be used to pay for these on-time expenses in the order they appear in the budget.
But Senate Finance Committee Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, questioned Justice’s supplemental appropriations requests and his surplus budget requests, raising concerns that these one-time expenditures could become recurring expenses and grow the state budget.
