Lawmakers are expected to travel to Charleston Sunday for a special session to be called by Gov. Jim Justice to restore cut items from the budget bill passed earlier this year. (Photo by Steven Allen Adams)

CHARLESTON — In their first meeting since Tuesday’s primary elections, lawmakers will gather at the State Capitol Building Sunday afternoon for a special session to beef up the skinny budget passed in March and pass other bills.

Gov. Jim Justice issued a proclamation Friday afternoon calling lawmakers into the first special session of 2024, with lawmakers gaveling in Sunday at 5 p.m.

“I’ve said time and time again that I would call a special session as soon as I heard that lawmakers were ready,” Justice said in a statement Friday. “I know additional matters need to be taken up, but for now, these are the issues they are ready to address, so I’m calling them in for a special session.”

In a phone interview earlier Friday morning, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Vernon Criss provided details about the 15 bills on the special session agenda, with most bills being supplemental appropriations to restore several cuts made to Justice’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget that takes effect Monday, July 1.

“The items that will be on the call are items that there is a critical need for between now and the end of the fiscal year, that needs to be addressed,” said Criss, R-Wood. “These items are addressing those, so that for the beginning of the new fiscal year, these items will be in place.”

FILE - West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice speaks at an election night watch party at the governor's mansion in Charleston, W.Va., Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Justice is calling state lawmakers back to the Capitol to consider an $80 million allocation to the state's colleges and universities to help students pay for school, among other proposals. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, File)

The House of Delegates and state Senate passed Senate Bill 200, the budget bill, on the last day of the 2024 regular legislative session on March 9. Justice presented his budget bill to lawmakers during his final State of the State address. Justice’s introduced budget was $5.265 billion.

That budget that was passed, also called the skinny budget, made several cuts to the governor’s proposed budget and held back appropriations of projected surplus monies until the state received approval of a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education for not meeting required levels of education spending needed to remain eligible to spend federal COVID-19 funds distributed to all 55 county school systems.

SB 200 set the general revenue budget for the next fiscal year at $4.996 billion, 5% less than the governor’s version. The skinny budget left more than $300 million unappropriated and gutted the section of the budget dedicated to appropriating available surplus dollars in the general revenue budget available at the end of the current fiscal year on Sunday, June 30.

Lawmakers made several other cuts, including approximately $147 million from Medicaid and the intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) waiver program. Justice said those cuts would be restored if lawmakers agree with one of his proposed bills.

“The special session I’m calling today isn’t just really important; it’s critical to the health and well-being of some of our state’s most vulnerable people,” Justice said. “In my book, restoring budgets for our Departments of Health and Human Services is the most pressing item on the call. We have hundreds of thousands of people in West Virginia who are relying on us right now, including foster kids and those with disabilities. If we don’t restore these funds immediately, it would be a real tragedy with real consequences.”

Another restored cut includes $50 million for a new agriculture lab on the campus of West Virginia State University in Institute. Since the budget bill is already law, Criss said lawmakers will pass supplemental appropriations to restore these cuts to the Governor’s recommended funding levels.

“The only way we have to do it is by supplemental appropriation,” Criss said. “The budget bill has already been passed, so it takes effect July 1. So, the only way we can adjust it is through supplemental appropriations.”

Other supplemental appropriations include $10 million for the Posey Perry Emergency Food Fund, $150 million for additional paving projects, and $27.3 million for the Hope Scholarship program, $2 million for contract nursing for West Virginia Veterans Home and veterans nursing facilities, and $2.8 million for the historical mural project in the upper rotunda of the State Capitol Building.

“We’ve seen unbelievable surpluses in West Virginia over the last few years and need to use them to take care of our roads while improving access to education,” Justice said. “When people and businesses are looking to move to West Virginia, they first ask about the roads and schools. We must continue providing additional funds for highway maintenance and school choice through the successful Hope Scholarship.”

As much as $83 million could also be appropriated to the state Higher Education Policy Commission for the state of emergency over the federal issues with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The $83 million will come from the state’s PEIA Rainy Day Fund.

The funding will be used to ensure that in-state students have access to higher education funding for the PROMISE Scholarship and the need-based higher education grant.

“This money will be used to backfill the mess created by the federal government,” Justice said. “Hopefully, they fix it soon, but we aren’t going to wait for them and let our colleges fail. Our students and faculty deserve stability and support, and we’re committed to providing it. This funding will ensure our students have peace of mind and our state’s institutions can serve our communities effectively.”

There will be other bills on the special session agenda, including Senate Bill 805, modifying Medicaid reimbursements for services at residential substance abuse treatment facilities. The bill passed the Senate unanimously, but never made it past third reading in the House. Another bill would give state political party executive committees authority to select presidential electors.. Another would change the formula for depositing money into the state’s Rainy Day Fund.

One issue that will not be on the special session agenda Sunday is childcare. House Minority Leader Pro Tempore Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, is part of a bipartisan task force that has been working on draft legislation addressing childcare issues in the state.

“It’s just disheartening to hear that childcare is once again not being included to be taken up by the Legislature,” Young said Friday by phone. “In the last three weeks, we have lost 265 childcare slots because centers have closed. And if we don’t do something to address the immediate funding needs by September 1st, 2,000 more families will lose their childcare spots. So, it’s a crisis that we are not taking care of.”

New federal rules that take effect in September require states to provide funds to childcare providers based on enrollment at individual facilities instead of overall attendance. Federal COVID-19 funding for childcare stabilization ended in September 2023.

According to the West Virginia Women’s Alliance, an estimated 604 childcare centers are projected to close unless the state provides enrollment-based reimbursements to childcare centers in the state. Without the reimbursements, there will be an estimated $23 million funding gap in the next fiscal year.

The West Virginia Women’s Alliance and the West Virginia Association for Young Children delivered petitions to the Governor’s Office Wednesday seeking legislation for the special session to address childcare funding. Justice had a bill introduced during the session for a state child and dependent care tax credit, but the bill was never taken up.

Several bills dealing with childcare were recommended by the House Committee on Senior, Children, and Family Issues but were never taken up by the full House. These included a tax break for non-profit and for-profit corporations for existing childcare facilities; an increase in the existing tax credit for employers providing childcare to employees; and a pilot program for a tri-share childcare program where the state, employer, and employee, contribute one-third of the total cost each.

State revenue officials expect to end the current fiscal year at the end of June with just under $800 million in surplus tax dollars. The Rainy Day Fund bill, if passed, will reduce the amount of surplus dollars that need to be transferred to the fund now sitting at $1.2 billion. And lawmakers are waiting to see how much a trigger in the 2023 personal income tax cut bill further cuts personal income tax rates.

Another special session could be possible in August for further appropriations of surplus tax dollars. But until then, Young said families are being left twisting in the wind.

“If that’s the case, that would be great, but these families are going to be waiting in limbo until then,” Young said. “Asking for $23 million out of over $800 million is not a big ask to make sure that families can work.”

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