Apr 11, 2025
photo by: W.Va. Legislative Photography
House Finance Committee Chairman Vernon Criss, R-Wood, explains the two supplemental appropriations bills moving additional money for the Hope Scholarship for the next fiscal year during Thursday’s floor session.
CHARLESTON — The West Virginia House of Delegates took up a compromise with the Senate on the state budget, but not before debating the rising costs of the state’s educational voucher program, which are expected to double.
The Senate amended its version of the general revenue budget for fiscal year 2026 into House Bill 2026 on Wednesday. On Thursday night, the House voted to amend HB 2026 further, striking out everything in the bill and inserting a compromise general revenue budget negotiated by the chairs of the House and Senate finance committees.
The compromise amendment passed the House in a 78-18 vote and heads back to the Senate to concur.
The compromise sets the general revenue budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 at $5.318 billion, slightly lower than the adjusted $5.322 billion general revenue estimate for fiscal year 2026 presented on behalf of Gov. Patrick Morrisey and the $5.321 billion approved by the Senate Wednesday.
House Finance Committee Chairman Vernon Criss, R-Wood, explained that the compromise budget was 4% more than the $5.113 billion passed by the House last week. The compromise bill also leaves $5 million unappropriated for the next fiscal year.
“Total revenue changes from House Bill 2026, an increase of $200,526,818, for the total general revenue budget of $5,317,557,000,” Criss said. “We spent less than the governor’s budget by $5 million.”
The compromise general revenue budget also includes a section for one-time items to be paid out in order based on available surplus tax collections left over at the end of the current fiscal year. The four items total more than $210 million, including $125 million to the Division of Highways, $75 million to the Division of Economic Development project fund, $10 million to the Water Development Authority and $250,000 to the Cabell County Commission for Lily’s Place.
But debate broke out Thursday over two supplemental appropriations bills meant to give the Hope Scholarship educational voucher program the funding it needs for the next fiscal year.
House Bill 3356 would provide the Hope Scholarship program $28.4 million for fiscal year 2026 from available surplus collections from the current fiscal year. House Bill 3357 would provide the Hope Scholarship $33.8 million from available lottery surplus dollars for the next fiscal year.
Passed by the Legislature in 2021, the Hope Scholarship gives parents the option to use an equivalent portion of the per-pupil expenditure for their children from the state School Aid Formula — approximately $4,921 for the 2024-25 school year — for educational expenses, such as private or religious school tuition, home school, tutoring and learning aids.
By the end of the current school year, the program could exceed 10,000 participants. The State Treasurer’s Office estimates there could be 19,000 children in the Hope Scholarship program by the fall of the 2025-26 school year, who could receive as much as $5,500 per child.
According to the House Finance Committee, the Hope Scholarship is expected to cost the state approximately $58 million for the current fiscal year. The Department of Revenue estimated the cost in the next fiscal year could be $110 million. When all West Virginia students become eligible for the Hope Scholarship in fiscal year 2027, the program’s cost is expected to balloon to more than $300 million annually.
The program has a line item in the compromise budget of $24 million from general revenue and $9 million from the Lottery budget. The two supplemental appropriations for the Hope Scholarship would provide an additional $62.2 million, providing $95.2 million for the next fiscal year
Both bills passed the House by wide margins, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers raised concerns about the growing price tag.
“My concerns aren’t about school choice. … This is about fiscal responsibility, fiscal conservatism,” said Del. Dana Farrell, R-Kanawha. “We have this line item that continues to just expand that may have been good in concept when we chose to do this, but the application now we see is causing some problems.
“I’m not saying do away with the Hope Scholarship; let’s just do it responsibly so that it doesn’t push the budget to the point where we have to cut other things that are vital and very important to 100% of the population, not just a small percentage,” Farrell continued.
“This is a program that we have to fund because it’s an entitlement, and my fear is that we continue to do this with one-time money, and it’s just going to grow and grow and grow and get out of control,” said Del. John Williams, D-Monongalia. “Meanwhile, the thing that hasn’t grown is the total size of our state budget so that we’re giving more money to other parts of education.”
“They can estimate the number of students that are going to be on the Hope Scholarship and use the funds, but what if for some reason there’s 5,000 extra students that they don’t account for and now we need to come up with the $2 million, $5 million or whatever that would be to fund that?” asked Del. Jeffrey Stephens, R-Marshall. “To get it more balanced, it may be better to look at something in the future to say there’s a cap and we could work on that.”
House Majority Leader Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, argued in favor of the Hope Scholarship supplementals, stating that the funding was important to keep the promise made to these students and their parents.
“This is an important supplemental because it represents a priority that we established in law as a body just a few years ago, a commitment to our students,” he said. “Many of them rely on this commitment. It’s not about not being fiscally conservative. It’s about our obligations to the state and prioritizing those obligations in a fiscally conservative manner.”
“I just want to remind us of that, that these are people. It’s not just a supplemental appropriation,” said Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis. “It’s going directly into your communities, into schools in your communities, into families in your communities, directly into West Virginians. … This is not a new obligation. This is an existing obligation that supports families and kids.”
“I also take exception to the words being tossed around about obligations and priorities,” said House Minority Leader Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell. “Obligations and priorities? Our first obligation we’ve ever made is to provide a thorough and efficient public education system. … This consistently flies in the face of that.”
Debate also broke out on a bill that was on first reading Thursday. Del. Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, made a motion to reject Senate Bill 748, creating the Safer Communities Act. His motion failed in a 46-50 vote.
SB 748 would allow counties to put on the ballot for voters to approve a public safety sales tax or amusement tax to fund county emergency response services, such as county prosecuting attorney offices, sheriff’s departments, paid and volunteer fire departments, local offices of emergency services or emergency medical services.
“We want to cut taxes. We want to make our state attractive to the people that live here and the folks that might want to live here by having a low tax situation. This bill does exactly the opposite,” Gearheart said. “I don’t get mad very often, but this makes me mad. … It is absolutely the opposite of what we did when we started to reduce income taxes.”
“At the end of the day, we still do not have a fix on a permanent funding for the EMS systems across the state of West Virginia,” said Del. Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, a supporter of the bill. “It’s time, ladies and gentlemen, we make a stand, that we do something for these services across the state of West Virginia.”
SB 278 will be on third reading by Saturday, April 12. The bill has 24 amendments pending.
MORGANTOWN — West Virginia University on Thursday said it is continuing to “work directly” with a number of …
Copyright © 2025 Wheeling Newspapers, Inc. | https://www.theintelligencer.net | 1500 Main Street, Wheeling, WV 26003 | 304-233-0100
