Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin likely will call a special session to take up the 2016-17 state budget later this month, whether there's agreement in the Legislature on a budget plan or not, Revenue Secretary Bob Kiss said Wednesday.
"We're probably talking about doing that sometime in May because of the critical nature of getting something in place," Kiss said of the timing for a special session.
As of Wednesday - the 53rd day of the state budget impasse - Kiss said legislative leaders have not reached any agreement on a plan to close the current-year budget shortfall and a projected $270 million gap in the 2016-17 budget.
However, he said the governor cannot wait indefinitely, with the prospect of a shutdown of state government beginning on July 1 if the new fiscal year budget has not been enacted by then.
If the Legislature cannot come up with an agreement on a viable budget plan, Kiss said Tomblin will call them back, and will introduce his version of the budget bill for legislative action.
During the regular session, Tomblin submitted a budget that required passage of a sales tax on telecommunications services and an increase in the state tobacco tax to raise needed additional revenue. Neither house acted on the sales tax proposal. The Senate passed the tobacco tax increase bill 26-6, but the bill was soundly defeated in the House Finance Committee.
Kiss said there's no specific date set for calling the special session, although legislators are scheduled to be in Charleston May 19-20 for legislative interim meetings.
Kiss made the comments during the department's monthly revenue briefing for April, a month in which revenue collections showed few signs of improvement in the state's economic downturn. Overall tax collections of $484.87 million were $72.3 million below estimates, and $79.9 million below April 2015 collections, Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow reported.
Year-to-date, with two months remaining in the budget year, the state budget is running $218.7 million short of estimates, at $3.326 billion.
Personal income tax collections were the primary culprit for the month, Muchow said, with collections of $287.66 million falling $44.4 million below estimates, and coming in 18 percent below April 2015 collections.
The big drop, he said, was from non-resident withholding taxes, which includes payments by out-of-state residents who have dividends from stock in West Virginia companies or receive royalties from property or mineral rights in the state. Those collections fell nearly 70 percent from more than $50 million in April 2015 to $15.6 million this April, reflecting plunging energy prices and production.
Likewise, several taxes - predominately from coal and natural gas production - were $16.9 million below estimate, and 31 percent below last April, at $22.07 million. Year-to-date collections of $158.7 million are 38 percent below estimates.
One bright spot, Muchow said, was that payroll withholding taxes were up 2.5 percent in April.
"It you look anywhere in the numbers for optimism, that's probably where it would be, with the numbers for the withholding tax," said Muchow, who said the state would need to see several months of increase in payroll withholding taxes to foresee an economic upturn.
"Certainly, the 2.5 percent is somewhat positive, but we need to see several more months of that," he said.
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.