The West Virginia Senate waived its normal constitutional rules Wednesday to pass four pieces of legislation which must be enacted by the end of the month for the state to keep paying its bills on time.
The four bills (SB 342, 357, 360 and 364) shuffle money among various government accounts so that the state, in the midst of huge revenue shortfalls, can continue to meet its obligations.
"The passage of these four supplemental bills by the end of the month is critical for cash flow purposes and for the balancing of the 2016 budget," said Lalena Price, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Revenue.
The bills are known as supplemental appropriations bills, as they are supplements to the budget bill passed last year by the Legislature.
Normally, once a bill is passed out of a committee and to the floor of the Senate, it must be read on three separate days before it can be voted on. Because of the urgency surrounding the legislation, the Senate voted unanimously to waive that requirement and pass all four bills on Wednesday, the first day they were considered by the full Senate.
All four bills also passed unanimously.
Perhaps the most significant of the four bills takes $51.8 million from the state's Rainy Day Fund and sends it to the state's general revenue fund, where it is necessary to balance this year's budget.
That leaves about $800 million in the state's two Rainy Day Funds. It also marks the second consecutive year the state has tapped into the reserve accounts to help balance the budget. In fiscal year 2015, which ended last June, the state drew about $14 million from the reserve accounts. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin had initially proposed using $68 million, but was able to reduce that number because of better than expected investment returns on retirement accounts for state workers.
The budget Tomblin proposed for fiscal year 2017, which begins in July, takes no money from the Rainy Day Fund. The relatively small dent to the Rainy Day Fund has been coupled with severe cuts to other parts of the budget.
In October, Tomblin ordered 4 percent cuts to nearly every state agency, coupled with 1 percent cuts to public schools.
It marked the third straight year of across-the-board budget cuts and the first cut in recent memory to K-12 education.
Tomblin's proposed budget for next year includes a nearly $49 million reduction in state aid to public schools, largely a result of declining enrollment.
With West Virginia slowly shedding population, Tomblin's budget projections show a decline in state funding for public schools every year through at least 2021.
Funding for the state's colleges and universities has been cut three consecutive years and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest point since at least 2008, according to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. Next year's budget forecasts further cuts to higher education, as do budget forecasts for fiscal year 2018. Tomblin's budget projections (which can be changed at any time) predict no growth in higher education funding through at least 2021.
The three other bills passed by the Senate decrease general revenue funding for the state Department of Health and Human Resources, while replacing that money with income from the state Lottery.
"The cash is there, but if we didn't get it in the right spot then they were going to be down to even threatening payroll here and there," Senate Finance Chairman Mike Hall, R-Putnam, said. "State payroll and whatever else they've got an obligation to pay."
The bills next go to the House of Delegates, which must pass them by Sunday.
Reach David Gutman at david.gutman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.