The budget numbers are not adding
up for Senate Finance Committee Chair Roman Prezioso (D-Marion, 13) who sees
much more demand for state dollars than what West Virginia
“You either have to raise some revenues or
you’re going to have to go deeper in this budget to make some cuts,” said
Prezioso. “And, right now, I’ve got a 15 minute revolving door in this
office of people coming in and saying, ‘Please restore our budget. Please
restore our budget.’”
When the next fiscal year begins in
July, FY 2015, it will be the second consecutive year of 7.5 percent budget
reductions for some state agencies; but, Prezioso said, even those cuts may not
be enough.
Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s
financial team has used a combination of those cuts and one-time dollars,
including an $84 million dip into the state’s Rainy Day Fund, to fill a
projected $265 million dollar budget hole and balance the $4.7 billion dollar
budget for 2015. Up to now, the Rainy Day Fund, which contains $920
million total, has not been used to pay for regular ongoing state expenses.
Tomblin has also proposed sweeping
a number of state accounts for more than $60 million About $39 million of
that total would come from lottery revenues — cutting into money that usually
goes to cities, counties, infrastructure and greyhound breeders.
Prezioso said Tomblin’s balanced
budget depends on passage of six different proposed bills before the close of
the 2014 Regular Legislative Session on March 8 and, as of Monday, he was not
optimistic about the chances for all of those proposals. Failure for any
part would require additional revenues to be found
To sufficiently address the budget
needs, he said he would support raising the state sales tax from six percent to
seven percent, while adding as much as $1 to the state tax on a pack of
cigarettes. West Virginia
“I think people would understand
the dire straits that we’re in, for the next two years, (it) would help us to
restore some of those budget cuts and get us through the next two years and,
hopefully, the economy is going to turn around on us,” argued Prezioso.
However, he admitted tax increases
are an especially tough sell in this election year. “Nobody wants to say
the ‘T’ word,” said Prezioso. “People need to put aside our political
differences and let’s start doing the right thing and make the tough decisions
and get through this thing.”
The end of the 60-day session,
which comes in less than three weeks, will be followed by a week long
budget session at the State Capitol focused on approval for the FY 2015 budget.
