EDITORIAL: No 'critical needs'? Look again

Jul. 9—West Virginia ended Fiscal Year 2023 with a $1.847 billion surplus—which is a lot less impressive when you consider the "surplus " is the result of artificially low budgets, unpaid salaries from still vacant positions in government agencies and a massive-but-temporary surge in fossil fuel taxes that's already declining.

We've made clear our stance on these artificial "surpluses " Gov. Jim Justice and Republican lawmakers like to tout: You can't brag about "excess " revenue when critical agencies and projects are chronically underfunded and therefore can't perform as they are meant to.

It's also important to note that the Legislature has already appropriated $1.165 billion of the $1.847 billion for the fiscal year 2024 budget, and existing law requires a certain portion of any surplus to go to the state's Rainy Day Fund ($231 million this year). So the real "surplus " is only about $451 million.

House Finance Chairman Vernon Criss recommends designating $100 million of the remainder for highways—a sentiment echoed by Senate President Craig Blair, though he said $150 million—and we agree.

But Blair also floated spending the leftover $300 million-$351 million on PEIA, economic development and a revolving loan fund. And Criss said, "I don't see any rush to use the money right now unless there's a critical need. I haven't heard of any critical needs."

We're not sure if Blair's and Criss' statements reflect a genuine ignorance (less likely) or a willful blindness (more likely), but they are wrong. We can think of four areas in "critical need ": jails, social services, emergency response services and higher education.

Our jail system is literally in crisis: It's been under a formal state of emergency for over a year now because of significant understaffing. There are over 1, 000 job vacancies in the Department of Corrections, with some prisons operating with only 25 %-50 % of the required staff.

The DHHR is also running short-staffed, particularly when it comes to child protective service workers. According to the foster care dashboard, CPS has a 33 % vacancy rate, even as the number of kids in foster care rises.

EMS agencies from around the state recently met with several lawmakers to explain just how dire the situation has become: Nearly 20 EMS providers have closed since the start of 2022, and the ones that remain are stretched so thin, they're close to breaking. And when EMS fails, people die.

The state's largest higher education institution, West Virginia University, has started austerity measures because of a $45 million shortfall. That deficit could have been only $8 million if the Legislature had continued funding the state's land grant school at appropriate levels over the last several decades. And it's not just WVU—higher education across the state is suffering because the Legislature has deprioritized it.

If the Legislature gives WVU the $37 million it owes the university, plus whatever it owes other public institutions of higher education, that still leaves roughly $300 million of the surplus to be divided among the DOC, DHHR and EMS agencies statewide. About $100 million to each of the three may not solve all their problems, but it would certainly be a start.