House of Delegates Amends, Passes Senate Budget Bill, Setting Up Showdown
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CHARLESTON -- Members of the West Virginia House of Delegates passed the state Senate's version of Gov. Jim Justice's budget Wednesday, but not before amending their own budget proposal into the bill.
The House passed Senate Bill 150, the budget bill, in a 95-5 vote Wednesday. The bill now heads back to the Senate, which is expected not to concur with the House changes to the bill, setting up a conference committee to work out differences in time for the end of the 2020 legislative session at midnight Saturday, March 7.
House amended its version of the budget -- House Bill 4021 -- into the Senate bill Wednesday. The House proposed budget of $4.578 billion is $7 million less than the governor's budget and $7 million more than the Senate's proposed plan.
"This is a good and balanced budget," House Finance Committee Chairman Eric Householder, R-Berkeley, said. "It may not include everything everyone would want in an ideal world, but it works within our available means to provide a great amount of good for the citizens of this state."
The House budget cuts $45.1 million from the Governor's recommendations for additional spending, including $1 million from the Community Food Program, $6 million from the Civil Contingency Fund for the Milton Flood Wall project, $5 million from the Department of Commerce for the Division of Tourism, $3.3 million for the proposed second West Virginia National Guard ChalleNGe Academy in Montgomery, and $1.8 million for the Eastern Panhandle MARC train.
The House also cut $10.5 million in additional funding for the Jobs and Hope substance abuse treatment and job training program, and $3 million from the WV Invests community and technical college grant program created last year by Senate Bill 1. Several of these cut items were placed at the end of the budget should any surplus funding be left over at the end of this fiscal year on June 30.
More than $39 million of budget improvements were included in the SB 150 due to House bills that have passed the chamber.
This includes $17.1 million in Medicaid Restoration to stabilize Medicaid reserves for various waiver programs, including the intellectual and developmentally disabled waiver program.
Another $1.8 million is set aside for the Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport.
The largest line item is $16.8 million for House Bill 4092 raising reimbursement rates for foster and kinship parents and child placement agencies. The Senate Judiciary Committee amended House 4092 on Tuesday night, removing the reimbursement rates and requiring the Department of Health and Human Resources to create a three-tiered plan for foster care reimbursements. House members said they plan to make keeping the $16.8 million for the reimbursements a priority.
"(Householder) said 'the members have spoken loud and clear: the number one priority of this House is funding the $16.8 million for foster care,'" Del. Jason Barrett, D-Berkeley, said. "I'm going to join (Householder) and vote for this budget to send a loud and clear message to the Senate."
There were 15 secondary amendments voted on to the House Finance Committee strike-and-insert amendment. An amendment offered by Householder restored $3 million for the second ChalleNGe Academy, taking that funding from the state Supreme Court general expenses line item. Delegates from Kanawha and Fayette counties thanked the House Finance Committee for returning the funding.
House Democrats offered 14 of the 15 amendments Wednesday to SB 150 to restore some of the funding cut by the House Finance Committee last week. All the amendments were rejected mostly along party lines.
Almost all of the minority's amendments cut funding for the Department of Health and Human Resources Division of Human Services line item in an attempt to increase or restore funding for food programs, domestic violence programs, senior nutrition, secondary roads, the MARC train, Coronavirus preparation, at-risk youth programs, and bullet-proof vests.
House Finance Committee Minority Chairman Mick Bates, D-Raleigh, said he would vote yes on SB 150, but had wished the process in crafting the bill had been more bipartisan. Debate on the bill took nearly four hours starting at noon, with debate on amendments taking up the majority of the time.
"It really doesn't have to be this hard and it doesn't have to take this long," Bates said. "What we have here is a difference in priorities and a difference in approach...this afternoon the minority party offered a series of amendments, and this afternoon the minority of the people thought these were a priority. Those amendments were all defeated on party lines, and that is regrettable."
While SB 150 had overwhelming bipartisan support, five delegates voted no: Sammie Brown, D-Jefferson; Jim Butler, R-Mason; John Doyle, D-Jefferson; Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, and Isaac Sponaugle, D-Pendleton. Sponaugle, a Democratic candidate for Attorney General, voted against the bill after the House rejected an amendment from him to set aside $8 million for Coronavirus preparations. DHHR confirmed Wednesday that two West Virginians with the flu are being tested for Coronavirus.
"Laugh all you want, that's the biggest epidemic that's hitting the United States, that's hitting the world, and that's causing the markets to crash," Sponaugle said. "(The House) has no plan. At least the Senate put $2 million in to combat the Coronavirus. The House takes a 'What, Me Worry" position."
Doyle, who tried to amend the bill to restore funding for the Eastern Panhandle MARC train, said the House has no business voting on the budget before the end of session.
"We have four more days to make important decisions about the future of the state of West Virginia," Doyle said. "Passing the budget (Wednesday) forecloses many of the options many of the members would like to have. By doing that, we're restricting the arena we have to solve these problems."
McGeehan, a consistent critic of fellow House Republicans for increasing general revenue spending every year, said SB 150 does not do enough to limit spending and shrink the size of government.
"We can't ignore the fact that it's only in times of necessity that this body seems to try to reduce spending," McGeehan said. "This would have been the year to try to get a handle on our finances and reduce spending. When we compare what is authorized in the budget at the end of the 60-day regular session versus at the end of the year when we get a report on what was spent, typically what was spent was far greater than what was authorized."