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Justice will add $50M flood relief funding to special session

(Capitol Notes - Graphic Illustration/MetroCreative)

CHARLESTON — With parts of West Virginia still cleaning up from last week’s high winds, tornadoes, and flooding with more storms on the way Thursday, Gov. Jim Justice said he will add a bill to a possible May special session for emergency flood relief funding.

Speaking Wednesday during his weekly administration briefing at the State Capitol Building, Justice criticized the Legislature for removing $50 million for emergency flood relief from Senate Bill 200, the Governor’s budget bill, on the last day of the 2024 session on March 9.

“Remember just one thing … Jim Justice put in his State of the State address and in his budget … $50 million to address stuff just like this,” he said.

As of Monday, 12 West Virginia counties were under a state of emergency for last week’s rain and storms: Pleasants, Barbour, Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Ohio, Wetzel, Wood, Fayette, Kanawha, Lincoln, and Nicholas counties.

On April 2, a storm front swept the state with winds between 70-90 mph, spawning seven tornadoes between Cabell, Putnam, and Kanawha counties according to the National Weather Service. Heavy rains caused the Ohio River to exceed its flood stage in some of the worst flooding in 20 years, with flash flooding in other creeks and streams.

Justice said his office was already in contact with the Federal Emergency Management Agency about getting a federal disaster declaration. While last week’s storms will likely garner the state a federal declaration, past disasters in the state have come under greater FEMA scrutiny. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, West Virginia has experienced more than 1,600 flood events between 2010 and 2021.

“It’s going to be difficult to get FEMA across the finish line … but we’re trying,” Justice said. “We’ve been successful on FEMA in the past … The problem with FEMA is they want a great number of people who are affected or a great amount of property damage.”

During his eighth and final State of the State address on the first day of the 60-day 2024 legislative session, Justice called for a one-time $100 million appropriation, with $50 million set aside for congressional earmarks and $50 million for flooding. The funding was included in his version of the budget bill.

The version of the budget passed by the Legislature set the general revenue budget for fiscal year 2025 beginning June 30 at $4.996 billion. While lawmakers traditionally include a section in the budget bill to fund certain items from available surplus dollars at the beginning of the new fiscal year, the Legislature passed a “skinny” budget.

Justice and the Legislature are awaiting word from the U.S. Department of Education regarding a waiver from required total education spending rules to remain eligible for remaining federal COVID-19 funding the state received between 2020 and 2021. A denial of the waiver would mean the state having to spend $465 million — likely from available surplus tax dollars — on education in the state.

During Tuesday’s monthly state Board of Education meeting, State Superintendent of Schools Michelle Blatt said that the waiver is likely to be granted. Once that happens, Justice is expected to call a special session, likely in May, to restore line items either cut or reduced in the budget bill.

Justice told the story of a Fayette County fire chief whose home was destroyed while he was out responding to emergency calls during last week’s storms. Without naming him, Justice leveled criticisms at cutting the $50 million flood funding at Senate Finance Committee Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, whose version of the budget bill prevailed.

“That $50 million would have been sending dollars and being able to help that man today,” Justice said. “We cut it out of our budget. A finance chair with more knowledge than all of us put together said `nope, we don’t need that.’ Here, we’ve got a lot of surplus dollars and I’m telling you … it is frivolous for us to not create a bucket to where we can folks.”

In a statement Wednesday, Tarr said Justice already has access to emergency dollars through his civil contingency fund, which is supposed to be used for “accidental, unanticipated, emergency, or unplanned events.”

“Governor Justice must be confused on several levels, or again just needs to direct attention away from his tendency towards wasteful but feel-good spending,” Tarr said. “He has went all over the state doling out billboard size checks from his civil contingency fund like a kid with money burning a hole in his pocket. The civil contingency fund is set up in code specifically for these emergency situations.

“The legislature being a backstop against his reckless financial tendencies is the reason he even has money in that contingency fund,” Tarr continued. “We have been the adult in the room and gradually getting West Virginia in a place of financial security when the governor at most every turn has tried to place the taxpayer’s dollar under a pile of manure. If he wants to credit me for the legislature’s fiscal prudence, I’m honored. But ultimately, it’s taken a team of lifelong Republican fiscal conservatives.”

The civil contingency fund had more than $83 million according to House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay. In a statement Wednesday, Hanshaw said the $50 million that Justice seeks wouldn’t have been available to use for flooding responses until the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.

“Many West Virginians continue to recover from last week’s extreme weather events, and my prayers remain with them,” Hanshaw said. “Neither the Fiscal Year 2025 budget the governor presented to the Legislature in January, nor the Fiscal Year 2025 budget the Legislature passed in March, would have any bearing on the state’s ability to aid with this disaster right now.

“Those (civil contingency) funds are at his disposal for emergencies such as this,” Hanshaw continued. “The governor is granted even more flexibility in directing funds during a state of emergency. If the governor wishes to respond to this tragedy in any way, he has the full capacity to do so, unfettered by the Legislature.”

While the state is quick to request federal disaster relief funds from FEMA, it continues to drag its feet at addressing flood mitigation and trying to lessen the effects of worsening storms in the state due in part from climate change. The Legislature passed Senate Bill 677 in 2023 requiring an update of West Virginia’s flood protection plan by June 30 of this year.

The current state flood protection plan was created in 2004 and hasn’t been updated since. Even though the State Resiliency Office spent more than half a year reviewing the plan, it said in January 2023 that it had no plans to make changes to the plan at that time.

The bill gives the state resiliency officer authority over the West Virginia Disaster Recovery Fund currently administered by the Division of Homeland Security. The fund can be used to provide money for disaster recovery for people, local governments, emergency services and local organizations. The bill included $10 million for the fund, which can be replenished each year.

The bill also created the West Virginia Flood Resiliency Trust Fund within the State Resiliency and Flood Protection Act, though no money has been appropriated to the fund.

“We’ve got to have the ability to have the foresight, especially now, to create a bucket,” Justice said. “I’m going to put it back on my call when I call our Legislature back and probably now after the election the last part of May. But when I call them back, it will be part of the call. Absolutely with our surplus dollars we ought to create the bucket and then we’re going to have to continue to replenish the bucket as we go forward.”

Tarr said the $50 million Justice wants is meant for flood mitigation, not for disaster relief. Justice, who is running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, is opposed by U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., whom Tarr supports.

“The flooding fund that he’s referencing is a mitigation and planning fund for flood prevention measures, not for restoring losses associated with a flooding event such as a state level FEMA operation,” Tarr said. “That is what FEMA is for, once he’s done his job as governor getting a federal declaration established and FEMA involved. Maybe he should ask Alex Mooney for some assistance there?”

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com

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