House approves amended Senate budget proposal, including pay raises and social security tax cuts

Del. John Hardy, R-Berkeley, speaks to lawmakers during the House floor session on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. (Perry Bennett | West Virginia Legislative Photography)

The West Virginia House of Delegates approved on Tuesday an amended version of the Senate’s budget proposal , coming in at just under $5 billion, amid what House Finance Vice Chair John Hardy, R-Berkeley, described as a “very unique budget session with frustrations on many levels for many people.”

Lawmakers passed the budget bill 74-16 , with 10 members absent and not voting. The House’s changes to the bill included adding in language that would allow pay raises for educators and school service personnel as well as further cuts to the state’s Social Security income taxes. The Senate can now either agree to those changes and adopt the budget, sending it to the governor, or further amend the bill and send it back to delegates.

During the same floor session, delegates postponed action for one day on their own budget proposal , which already included the initiatives for pay raises and Social Security. Bills for both those initiatives — two priorities set by Gov. Jim Justice before the start of the session — have already been passed by the House, while Senate leadership has expressed concerns about how they will fit into what will likely be a stopgap budget until May. Those bills are still pending, with amendments, in the Senate.

Del. Vernon Criss, R-Wood, who chairs House Finance, announced last week — and has repeated several times since — that lawmakers will likely need to reconvene for a special session in May to finalize and amend whatever budget is passed this session. The special session would come in response to what Hardy called on Tuesday a “potential clawback” of $465 million by the federal Department of Education due to the state underfunding educational programming while receiving relief funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Justice — who has been adamant that the issue is not actually a “clawback” — has been in “negotiations” with the federal department to keep the $465 million in West Virginia, saying in a press release on Saturday that he is “confident” a “positive resolution” will be reached “quickly.”

Part of that resolution could depend on the Legislature adopting several budget items — including a $150 million appropriation to the School Building Authority, a $45 million appropriation for the Hope Scholarship and the 5% pay raises for educators totaling about $77.5 million , among other things — that could show the federal government that the state is working on adjusting and increasing funding for school initiatives in the coming fiscal year.

“Is the thinking on education that if we start adding up all these extras to education that we’re doing in this budget, and there’s a lot of them, that that might cushion any requirement that we would have to pay back?” Del. Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, asked Criss during the floor session.

“Yes, sir,” Criss responded.

Those “extras,” if adopted, would total about $400 million. It remains unclear, however, how many of these initiatives will be included in the final version of whatever budget is passed this session. What does seem to be clear right now, according to lawmakers, is the “uncertainty” surrounding details of the state’s financial picture for fiscal year 2025.

“We are controlling the back of the budget this year,” Hardy said, referring to surplus appropriations. “We’re trying to control what we’re spending there due to the uncertainty in our budget, in the front of the budget, and with the uncertainty of the clawback.”

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