A special legislative session started back up on Sunday with a key committee advancing supplemental appropriations and childcare tax credit legislation, but the focal point of Gov. Jim Justice’s agenda, another 5% personal income tax cut, still seemed stalled.
House Finance Chairman Vernon Criss, R-Wood, said on Sunday evening that he had no new status report for the tax cut bill — in part because he had just led a two-hour meeting to consider other bills.
“I don’t have any other knowledge right now of what the latest situation is at this point,” Criss said.
The Senate brought up the bill on Sunday evening after passing a bunch of the rest of the agenda — and then bumped consideration of the tax bill until Monday at least.
“I request unanimous consent that the bill lie over one day while retaining its place on the calendar,” Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, said while making a procedural motion during the floor session in that chamber.
The governor called for the special session to begin last Monday and lawmakers did meet and passed six bills before adjourning to Sunday. The delay was meant to allow more time for consideration of issues like the tax cut. Also, Sunday marked the start of regularly-scheduled legislative interim meetings so lawmakers had expected to be gathering in Charleston anyway.
On Sunday evening, members of the state Senate passed a couple of bills that had already been passed by the House of Delegates, although there are still some differences to work out. One was a $15.6 million supplemental appropriation to the West Virginia National Guard, and the other puts West Virginia in alignment with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Senators also passed several other bills that will require action by the House for completion.
As the special session and interim meetings co-mingle on Monday, the Joint Standing Committee on Finance — representing lawmakers from both the House and Senate — is scheduled to hear at 9 a.m. from financially-focused representatives of the Justice administration. The agenda points toward a look at how state finances are shaping up.
As soon as that interim committee meeting concludes, the House Finance Committee is expected to resume consideration of some of the many bills remaining on the agenda.
The full House of Delegates is scheduled to gather for a floor session at noon Monday to consider legislation. The Senate is scheduled for a 1 p.m. Monday floor session.
Criss, the House Finance chairman, on Sunday evening described progress on several pieces of legislation. Some of the supplemental appropriations are being considered now because lawmakers were cautious during the regular session over a the possibility of a federal clawback that never came to be.
The most prominent bill advanced by the House Finance Committee during its Sunday afternoon discussions was H. B. 226, which provides a child and dependent care credit against the personal income tax. Although it has now passed out of committee, the full Legislature would still need to consider its passage.
“I think what we did today is something that the governor had proposed during the regular session. And several of these expenditure bills we had talked about during the regular session, but we had the fear of the clawback that we all remember from the feds that may have invaded some of these dollars,” Criss said.
“It was time to take this up. Childcare credits are a way to help families that are in West Virginia that make money in the state and are able to use those childcare tax credits against the monies they owe the state of West Virginia in personal income tax. That’s important so that they can use those dollars to help fund their childcare, and I think we can continue to do that.”
The House Finance committee also advanced supplemental appropriations bills including:
- $13 million for deferred maintenance at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine
- $40 million to support West Virginia hospitals through the governor’s civil contingent fund
- $135 million to the West Virginia Department of Economic Development with $125 million to the economic enhancement grant fund and $10 million for the West Virginia Jobs Investment Trust. Much of this money goes toward water and sewer projects.
“Most of the supplementals: one, we didn’t know what surplus dollars were going to be until we knew for sure, and a lot of these items that we dealt with today were one-time items that we could fund programs,” Criss said.
“For instance, the water development board. Or the dollars we talked about on the osteopath school. They did not participate in the funding that we did for small colleges and universities back during the regular session when we did those maintenance dollars for them.”
After initially introducing 27 bills for the special session, the Justice administration added four more on Saturday.
The latest policies to be considered were submitted in a proclamation to the Secretary of State’s Office.
- The first of the newest bills for lawmakers to consider is a $5 million appropriation for a child care expansion pilot program.
- Another is a $1 million allocation to the state Department of Education for school safety programs.
- The third would create a specific appropriation line for charter school construction grants.
- The fourth would appropriate $10 million for drought relief programs through the Department of Agriculture.
The state Senate went ahead and passed those newly introduced bills on Sunday evening, although the House of Delegates has not yet done so.
“I’m grateful that they’ve already passed important legislation, including funding to help fix our roads and support the Communities In Schools program, which is making a huge impact across all 55 counties. However, there’s more work to be done,” Justice said in a news release.
“I would still like to see the Legislature pass another personal income tax cut as we march towards eliminating it entirely. I’m confident we’re going to get everything across the finish line, because this is what the people of West Virginia are asking for: tax cuts, childcare aid, infrastructure upgrades, job creation, school improvements, school safety, and drought relief. Let’s get everything accomplished, and sign some bills.”