By Phil Kabler
As the 2016 regular session of the Legislature approaches, I find myself with an unusually high sense of dread.
Legislative sessions when the economy is down and the state budget is full of holes are always unpleasant.
This session will find the state in what is probably its worst budget crunch since 1989, with a deficit for the current budget year projected at $343 million, and no recovery in sight for the 2016-17 budget year.
On top of everything else, the downturn in the stock market means that there's no chance the Investment Management Board will meet the 7.5 percent return on investments for state pension fund investments, meaning the Legislature will have to find about $100 million to fully cover the state's contribution to the retirement funds.
Additionally, no plans have come together to come up with the $500 million-plus a year of additional funding needed to repair and maintain the state's crumbling road system, or to ease the $120 million of benefits cuts for teachers and public employees insured by the Public Employees Insurance Agency.
In my experience, when there is no money to do positive things, legislatures go anti.
Given the current composition of the Legislature, based on last year's proposed bills, the mood this session may be anti-labor, anti-LGBT, anti-reproductive rights, anti-immigrants, anti-gun safety, etc.
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The silliness has begun even before the session started, with Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, who looked at all the pressing issues facing the state, and apparently decided his legislative priority should be legislation to force WVU to play Marshall in basketball.
At least, it would equal the number of bills the freshman senator lead sponsored last year (one; it died in committee).
Assuming Woelfel achieves a milestone and gets his bill passed, as I understand it, it simply directs the two schools to play.
If WVU refuses, for sound financial and strength-of-schedule concerns, what's the enforcement mechanism? Cut state funding for WVU athletics? (A 2014 legislative audit found the athletic department got less than a $31,500 state subsidy, equal to 0.04 percent of its total budget). Revoke a basketball scholarship? Try to find a court to issue a writ of mandamus?
Woelfel? Woeful.
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Got to hand it to Daniel Hall, who has given new meaning to the word opportunistic. Elected to the state Senate as a Democrat, he flipped to give Republicans a majority in both houses, thus assuring passage of a good bit of the GOP's agenda, and was rewarded with a (rumored) six-figure job with the National Rifle Association.
(In fairness, when Democrats were in power, legislators were regularly rewarded with five-figure state jobs, often so they could pad their state pensions.)
Had Hall been the head of state agency instead of chairman of two minor committees, he would have had to ask the Ethics Commission for an employment exemption before he could have begun job talks with the NRA, and there would have been a public record that he was seeking outside employment.
A reader asked why Hall didn't file for an employment exemption, and the short answer is: He didn't have to. Legislators write the laws, and in the case of the Ethics Act, they exempted themselves from that disclosure requirement.
Given that the legislative leadership has talked the talk about stronger ethics and more transparent government, requiring legislators to disclose when they are seeking employment with private-sector entities, particularly those that frequently have matters pending in the Legislature, would seem to be a positive step.
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Talked to a West Side resident who has been active in community development efforts there for many years (and preferred not to be identified), who was irate in light of the recent string of murders in that neighborhood that Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin last year vetoed SB582, the West Side demonstration pilot project.
The legislation would have directed the state's Office of Minority Affairs to undertake a four-year pilot project to address childhood poverty, improve health and wellness, and promote community development in the West Side.
Tomblin, in his veto message, said the two-person agency lacked the personnel and resources to undertake such a program. Tomblin is a pragmatist, and has seen the Legislature over the years enact many programs that looked great on paper, but ultimately failed because of a lack of funding and manpower.
The reader's anger, though valid, may have been misdirected at Tomblin, and perhaps should be directed at a Legislature that failed to fund the program it proposed.
Government is all about spending priorities, and one could speculate about how much good could have come from redirecting the $700,000-plus per year the state is spending to lock down the Capitol to fund the West Side pilot program.
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Finally, speaking of the lock-down, a reader facetiously suggested that Jason Pizatella decided to step down as acting Administration secretary and run for state auditor after the new security checkpoint at the East Wing entrance to the Capitol was set up beyond the entrance to his suite of offices.
That seems to suggest the Administration secretary and staff is considered expendable, the reader mused. As a practical matter, it also means that if they need to visit the restroom, ATM, or Capitol cafeteria, they either have to go through security, or walk outdoors and down to the main Capitol east-side entrance.
Meanwhile, a Capitol employee pointed out that if the intent is to keep dangerous weapons out of the building (some suggest the real intent is to keep protesting constituents out), someone overlooked the Kelly Axe Co. display near the food court. (It's one of several display windows of state art and memorabilia along the hallway outside the cafeteria.)
Indeed, the axes in the display may be antiques, but they sure look functional.
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304 348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.