After two hours of debate, delegates overwhelmingly passed a $4.635 billion general revenue budget bill.
Debate focused on two matters: whether delegates had truly had enough say-so in specific aspects of the budget for the coming fiscal year or whether much of the detail was worked out behind the scenes with the Governor’s Office and Senate leadership. And whether delegates should spend more time assessing the priorities for an anticipated billion dollars in surplus at the end of the current fiscal year.
In the end, most delegates agreed in a voice vote to accept a budget bill that had already passed by the Senate and then passed the budget bill 90-9 today, the 60th and final day of the regular legislative session.
“I believe the good outweighs the bad,” said Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay. “It’s not the budget that I would have written unilaterally. May not be the budget you would have written unilaterally. Probably was not the budget the chairman would have written unilaterally. But it’s where we are. It’s a budget that those three parties who make up the governing body of West Virginia agree should make up our budget priorities.”
The argument that won the day was that the budget bill reflects most legislative priorities, including the average 5 percent pay raise for state employees that leaders promised before the session began.
Lawmakers also have agreed to a separate bill, Senate Bill 531, that specifically adjusts pay for some state employees whose wage scales are in state code. That applies to teachers, other professional school workers like counselors, school service personnel and State Police troopers.
The bill originally had a $2,550 raise for troopers.
The House Finance Committee changed that to be a $10,000 raise for all troopers, which remained through the rest of the budget’s passage.
Those raises were the focus of a speech by Delegate John Hardy, R-Berkeley, as he exhorted his colleagues to vote for the budget bill.
“Now are you really willing to kick this can back to the Senate on the last day of session and willing to risk all those pay raises?” Hardy asked. “You want to go back to your constituents and risk all those pay raises? I think not.”
Delegate Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, urged more fiscal caution and more time spent on the details of the budget. He described himself as angry when the budget bill was first described on Friday night.
“The reality is, we’re seeing the real budget for the first time yesterday. We’ve been here for 60 days,” Gearheart said.
He said the $4.65 billion general revenue budget is misleading because of the billion dollars in surplus spending that is also included. The budget sets priorities for that money, which is anticipated on the strength of federal relief dollars, if it is truly there at the end of the fiscal year. The bottom line, Gearheart said, is the budget document actually represents about $5.65 billion in proposed spending.
“This is a $5.6 billion dollar budget — $4.6 billion in the budget; a billion to pay for what we underestimated our revenue last year,” he said. “Which probably means, unless the world comes to an end, we’ve already estimated the budget for next year by a billion dollars and we’ll be going through this same process and I’ll be having to take more blood pressure pills next year.”
Bottom line, Gearheart said, “The reality is we have not looked critically at this budget. This is the governor’s budget. And frankly, sending all this stuff in here for us to redo yesterday is just about a disrespectful as having a dog’s hind end in the front of this chamber. He’s not treating us like the elected people that we are. Our job is to look at what he sends, critically.”
Delegate Lisa Zukoff, D-Marshall, rose to speak right after Gearheart.
“I’d like to say ditto,” said Zukoff, who wound up voting in favor of the budget bill on its final approval. But she expressed concern about how little influence delegates had really exerted.
This year’s budget process began when Gov. Jim Justice proposed a generally flat, $4.6 billion general revenue budget — with the significant exception of the average 5 percent pay raise for state workers.
“For the fourth year in a row, I am proposing an essentially flat budget, which includes a third historic pay raise and Inflatocine for our state employees,” Justice said in his State of the State address, referring to his term for an employee bonus that he meant to serve as a sort of vaccine for the effects of inflation.
Lawmakers never took up legislation reflecting that Inflatocine incentive.
Delegate Joe Jeffries, R-Putnam, agreed that the budget achieved too few of the House’s priorities, particularly an income tax cut. But he disagreed with Gearheart on one matter.
“I’m concerned that we’re going on a tax and spend. We’re not getting any tax cuts for any average West Virginian,” Jeffries said. “I definitely don’t hold this position against the governor at all. And unlike my friend from the 27th, I was actually proud of Babydog in here when he brought her up.
“But I just can’t see us spending this kind of money right now. I think this body, this House decided we wanted tax cuts for working West Virginians, and we’re not getting that.”