Photo by Joselyn King West Virginia Senate Majority Whip Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, and Majority Leader Ryan Ferns, R-Ohio; and look back on a session that saw no increase in taxes.

WHEELING — Legislative plans to provide free tuition for West Virginia students attending state community and technical colleges went by the financial wayside as lawmakers sought ways to provide public employees pay raises, according to leaders in the West Virginia Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns, R-Ohio, and Majority Whip Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, looked back on the recent legislative session that saw the unanimous passage of a balanced budget containing a 5 percent pay increase for all state employees. This was achieved without raising any taxes, though additional spending for any new programs was eliminated, they explained.

On the chopping block went plans to start an intermediate court of appeals in the state, and another to provide the free tuition to community college students.

Ferns and Weld said every additional dollar found in the budget was put toward public employee compensation. This included over $150 million needed for the 5 percent pay raise, and the $29 million dedicated to freezing Public Employees Insurance Agency benefits through fiscal 2019.

Many bills with fiscal notes died because of that reason, they said.

“In order to get the 5 percent, we made significant cuts,” Ferns said. “There was a $10 million cut to Medicaid.”

He said lawmakers hear consistently from companies wanting to invest in West Virginia that there isn’t a trained workforce in the state. Providing free tuition to community colleges would indicate to them the state is serious about changing this, according to Ferns.

“Community and technical colleges are ideal for a lot of the opportunities coming down the pike, relating to all the spin-offs from the oil and gas industries, and the plastics,” Ferns said. “It’s community and technical colleges that would provide the training for those jobs.”

The Legislature also didn’t eliminate the inventory tax on equipment and machinery, which was thought to be an impediment to business growth, he said.

“There’s a fiscal impact to that, and we didn’t have any new spending on anything except for employee compensation,” Ferns said.

Weld, an assistant Brooke County prosecutor, hopes the measure to establish an intermediate court of appeals comes back next year.

West Virginia is one of only nine states that doesn’t have an intermediate court.

“I thought it was a pretty good bill, and addressed concerns people had about the process,” Weld said. “An intermediate court is something we lacked that puts us behind other states legally. We sent it to the House, and ultimately it wasn’t taken up. Hopefully, it is something that will be revisited again.”

A number of important pieces of legislation that didn’t mean additional costs to the state were approved by the Legislature this session, they said.

Lawmakers voted to place a constitutional amendment before voters in November, asking residents whether the budget of the State Supreme Court of Appeals should be placed under the oversight of the Legislature. The legislation resulted following reports the court spent over $32,000 on a couch.

Also approved was another joint resolution establishing nothing in the West Virginia Constitution that “secures or protects a right to abortion, or requires the funding of an abortion.”

And House Bill 4001 is awaiting signature from Justice. The measure requires able-bodied adults receiving government assistance to seek employment or volunteer their time at least 20 hours each week.