By Andrea Lannom
The Register-Herald of Beckley
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Chaos ruled in the West Virginia Legislature Saturday evening as the Senate finally passed a reduced pay raise for teachers, service personnel and State Police — but not until discovering it had first voted on the wrong version of the bill.
In the afternoon, the Finance Committee voted to amend the bill to lower a 5 percent raise to 4 percent. The bill moved to the full Senate and the body voted to approve it. But before the House could take it up to vote on changes, it was discovered that the Senate had actually voted on the original bill — the one that granted a 5 percent raise.
Confusion erupted in both chambers as as leaders tried to decide on a solution.
Because the bill had not been delivered to the House floor, the Senate voted to recall the bill and adopted the amendment to change the bill to the originally-intended 4 percent. Sen. Greg Boso, R-Nicholas, had proposed the amendment with the intention of dedicating 4 percent to state employees too, which would have to be managed under the budget and not the bill itself. …
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