West Virginia Senate passes $21.16 billion budget that prefunds HOPE scholarship while advancing a 10% income tax cut

The West Virginia Senate on Feb. 19 passed a $21,162,516,354 budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2027, moving the plan to the House of Delegates with a roll-call vote that recorded 28 yays, 4 nays and 2 absent not voting.

Senate Finance leadership said the committee substitute funds a 3% average pay raise for state employees, fully funds Medicaid, reinstates the higher-education funding formula and prefunds the HOPE scholarship by combining a $100 million supplemental and $200 million placed in a surplus section of the budget. Senate Finance also built a 10% personal income tax reduction into the revenue assumptions and expects offsets including a proposed increase in the vapor-products excise to raise roughly $22 million.

"This bill appropriates $21,162,516,354 in anticipated revenue collections and spending authority for fiscal year ending 06/30/2027," the Senate finance chair said, urging passage and describing the HOPE prefunding approach and Medicaid alignment. "We have a plan here that starts that" conversation on a tax cut and sends it to the House for negotiation, the chair said.

Opponents criticized the fiscal approach and the timing of a large tax cut. "I never thought I'd see the day where the West Virginia Senate is going to boast it is allocating $300,000,000 to school vouchers," the senator from Cabell said, arguing that many public-school systems face immediate funding pressures. The senator from Marion objected that a $250 million tax cut now would limit future capacity to invest in child welfare, childcare and public education and said she would vote no.

Finance committee members said the HOPE scholarship is being pre-funded in distinct steps: a $100 million supplemental to cover the first half of FY27 and $200 million in the surplus section intended to fund the second half if surplus collections materialize. The budget sponsor said that if the House rejects the tax cut, revenue estimates can be raised back to move items from surplus to the front of the budget.

The Senate also noted several other budget components: a $100 million highway appropriation placed in surplus, $750,000 for Glenville State, and mechanisms requiring the Department of Environmental Protection to handle rules and certification for selected credits described elsewhere in the session.

The bill now goes to the House of Delegates, where negotiators are expected to reconcile the revenue assumptions including the proposed tax cut and the supplemental and surplus appropriations that pre-fund HOPE. Negotiations were described on the floor as the next step before final enactment.

The Senate adjourned for the day and will reconvene at 9 a.m. tomorrow.