By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Gov. Jim Justice and the West Virginia Legislature can point to many successes during the recent special session, but some bills died when the gavels came down Tuesday night.
Lawmakers passed 37 bills by the time the House of Delegates and state Senate adjourned sine die Tuesday evening, including a compromise 2% personal income tax cut and a child care tax credit, two items that were at the top of Justice’s priority list when he called the Legislature into the special session of 2024 on Sept. 30.
The Legislature also approved 28 supplemental appropriations bills for nearly $500 million in available surplus and unappropriated tax dollars, providing additional funding for Communities in Schools, the state Veterans’ Home, the West Virginia State Police, the West Virginia National Guard, the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, higher education, rural hospitals, neuroscience research, drought recovery, EMS and nursing training and recruitment and more.
But not all supplemental appropriations bills passed Tuesday night. Senate Bill 2017, appropriating $300,000 for a proposed statue project for the State Capitol Building’s upper rotunda, was never taken up by the House. The proposed project would have placed statues of West Virginia’s first governor, Arthur Boreman, and presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln in the upper rotunda. The bill passed the Senate Sunday in a 28-1 vote. State Sen. Mike Caputo, D-Marion, was the lone nay vote.
Another supplemental appropriation, Senate Bill 2029, would have given $5 million to the state Department of Economic Development for a child care expansion pilot program.