Justice: ‘I’ll sign the budget,’ but plans to call special session ‘soon’

Gov. Jim Justice expressed his disappointment with the budget the Legislature passed during his administrative briefing on Thursday, March 14, 2024. (Screenshot from Gov. Jim Justice’s briefing)

Gov. Jim Justice said Thursday he will approve the budget bill passed by the Senate and the House of Delegates over the weekend, but he plans to call lawmakers back for a special session, possibly in April.

“I’ll sign the budget because we need a budget,” Justice said during his weekly administration briefing . “We absolutely need a budget. But I will absolutely call our Legislature back into special session and I will call them back possibly very soon.”

Justice said lawmakers needed to pass a tax break for child care and a homestead tax exemption on property taxes for low-income seniors.

“We needed to do it,” Justice said. “We can do it. For crying out loud, it is absolutely stuff that we can be doing,” Justice said. “And when I call them back, they will absolutely be on the call and we’ll see if we can get across the finish line.”

Justice said the state will be “in a mess” with the Department of Health with the budget approved by lawmakers.

“Tell me why, why in the world we spent so much time listening to a man that has now caused an absolute dog’s mess?” Justice said. “That’s all there is to it. We have hundreds of thousands of people in West Virginia that are going to be affected, whether it be [individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities] can you imagine? Can you imagine the good work that we did and now we could possibly hurt those folks? Foster children. [People with an aged and disabled waiver]. It just goes on and on and on all across the spectrum here. Why did we do it?”

Justice did not say who was referring to when he said he “caused an absolute dog’s mess.”

He added that by decreasing funding, the state will lose out on federal matching funding to programs.

Justice said “it’s surely possible” that he’ll call the special session prior to the May interim meeting.

“From the standpoint of the fact that now we have such a dog’s mess in this DHS,” he told a reporter. “… [H]ere’s all there is to it, this is going to be complicated to implement. It’s going to be complicated to figure out. We have absolutely got to fix this. And for us to wait way up in May. If we don’t watch out, we’re going to be deadlined in July and then we’re going to be in a real mess.”

Justice said “on the good side,” lawmakers passed a bill eliminating tax on Social Security and approved pay raises for state employees.

The governor signed the fiscal year 2025 budget, Senate Bill 200 , on Thursday afternoon.

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