CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Those who have wondered about the effects of some of Gov. Jim Justice’s verbal flourishes might be relieved.
As state leaders get closer to their deadline for a budget plan for the coming fiscal year, Justice says he intends to adopt the mindset that he does in close games as a high school basketball coach.
He says success is at hand on the budget and all sides need all the focus they can muster.
“I think the process is moving and I think it’s moving really quickly, and I think there’s opportunity” Justice said today during a brief interview in his office.
“That’s what I told everybody. While there’s momentum and opportunity, now’s not a time for either side – and I said this exact words – now’s not a time for either side to stand up and beat their chest.”
In other words, less drama, more focus.
Justice described this intention the way he often does: with an extended metaphor.
“Now’s the time to be quiet and think. That’s really what we should be doing,” said the governor, who coaches boys and girls basketball at Greenbrier East High School. “We ought not be strutting around beating our chest, either side. We ought to be quiet and think and come up with good stuff for the people.
“That’s what I do coaching. When the game is on the line and everybody is crazy, if the coach is completely crazy – you know, you’ve got to get crazy every now and then to motivate your kids, but if the coach is completely crazy all that does is hype the kids up more and more and more.
“They know when I’m serious and I can get right in their face and do all that as well. But when the game is on the line, that’s when somebody really needs to be thinking. That’s what I do. I am a real believer: don’t lose close games; I don’t lose close games.
“At the end of the day, we want to think and we don’t want to lose a close game, either side.”
Justice and lawmakers have been at odds for weeks over the state budget.
Justice, during his State of the State and thereafter, proposed a budget built on $450 million in revenue enhancements, mostly tax increases. His budget proposal amounted to $4.5 billion.
The Republican majority, two weeks ago, presented its own budget framework cast as spending no more than the $4.055 billion revenue estimate. The framework left $150 million undefined, and GOP leaders said that would be filled in by cuts — likely to education, higher education or healthcare.
A $4.27 billion budget outline presented by House Finance Chairman Nelson and the House Finance staff on Saturday afternoon shoots down the middle.
Justice today said that communication about that proposal over the weekend kicked off more substantive talks among the sides.
“Over the weekend, the Finance chairs reached out to us and they came with some stuff that started to make sense. Then, from that, we reached back and went through different variations of what we would be interested in,” Justice said.
Justice described himself as open to ideas, although not necessarily to compromise just for the sake or compromise.
“I’ve said a thousand million times, I’m all for working on any idea that makes good sense. I am not for just splitting the baby just to say you’ve got half and I’ve got half.”
By the time the weekend had ended, the dialogue had begun in earnest. By Monday afternoon, Justice was meeting with Republican leadership in the House.
“We went through that exercise and Monday morning came and there was more dialogue,” Justice said. “We really got more input from the majority party as to where they stood on a lot of things.”
Within a few minutes of meeting with the House GOP leaders, Justice gathered with Democrats in both houses.
“Before we were proceeding any further than that I felt like we needed to really take the pulse of where the Dems were. It wasn’t a matter of taking the proposal to the Dems,” he said. “It was a matter of my wanting to take a response back to the majority party, but I needed the pulse of where the Dems were on lots of things.
“This is not like a “we’ve had a plan brought to us by the Republicans and then we went to the Dems to get their approval.’ It’s not that way.”
Justice said he was glad to see the House plan includes a revenue component. It’s not the same as his, but it’s there.
“I think both sides totally now realize the depth of the seriousness of the problem. Both sides realize you’ll never in the world just get there by cutting your way to success. It’s impossible,” Justice said.
“Both sides now realize there has to be a revenue component to get us out of this mess. I am terribly insistent you need to spread the pain out amongst everybody – businesses, wealthy, people and government. If you do that it becomes very less painful.”
One aspect of the Republican plan he just doesn’t like is a proposal to refinance the Teachers Retirement System debt. That gets about $70 million for the current budget but is estimated to cost $1.5 billion over time.
“I guess the number one thing, and I think we can talk about this is the refinancing of the teachers retirement,” Justice said. “It’s like Wimpy and Popeye, pay me Tuesday for a hamburger today. If we do that we save a few bucks today and it costs us billions down the road. Billions. I’m not going to do that. I’m just not going to.”
One part of the House budget plan — representing about $14.5 million — was a bill doing away with the film tax credit, raising the beer barrel tax and transferring some highway funds to the general fund.
The first two aspects of the bill were originally Justice-backed proposals.
The bill was voted down this morning in the House, making GOP leaders wonder if their plan would really come together.
Justice said he’d prefer to look at the big picture.
“A lot of what they do up there, I’m not in control of, that’s for daggone sure,” he said a little less than an hour after that vote.
“I think the brass tax of the whole thing is just this: I think we have on the table a total budget now that we’re working with both sides.”
He continued, “We’re to the point in time where we need to look at the total and not the pieces. I think what’s happening up there is you had people say ‘We don’t want to look at the pieces, and if we’re only going to look at the pieces then we’re not going to go anywhere; we’re not going to vote for it.’ I don’t really know what happened in the vote, but that’s my guess.”
The clock outside Justice’s office says 11 days remain in this year’s legislative session. The governor said today that he doesn’t believe the Legislature will need to go beyond the 60-day session to get a budget deal.
“I truly believe we’re going to get this done in the regular session. I don’t think there’s going to be any need for an extended period to be involved,” he said.
“I think both sides realize what a wonderful message that would send to all the people, especially the majority party today. To get it done would be a big feather to them and a feather to all of us that we did our job.”
Justice said he’s ready for more meetings with legislators to resolve the budget.
“We’re meeting nonstop now. I’m 24-7,” he said. “I’m available nonstop. I’m ready to talk nonstop.”