A bill that would give Boone County Schools an extra roughly $2.2 million doesn't look like it's headed anywhere soon, and Boone school officials say employees' final paychecks this month could be delayed if the legislation doesn't pass.
Charles Chapman, the public school system's treasurer/financial services director, said the checks workers should receive June 24 may have to be delayed without the supplemental appropriation, which Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin added Wednesday to the current special legislative session call to allow lawmakers to consider the issue.
"We're holding off all we can in accounts payable," Chapman said.
The extra money would help Boone get through the June 30 end of this fiscal year. Chapman said that if the bill doesn't pass and checks are delayed, Boone will try to pay workers as soon as possible in July - if lawmakers pass a fiscal year 2016-17 state budget, something they haven't accomplished yet.
Boone schools Superintendent John Hudson sent a letter Thursday to employees listing steps the school system has taken to address its budget problems. Among them was an attempt to get a short-term loan from a local bank, but the letter said West Virginia's attorney general issued an opinion saying "that a public entity such as a school system could not receive a loan of this nature and repay said loan in the next fiscal year."
Hudson wrote that if the steps Boone has taken - including requesting the supplemental appropriation - are unsuccessful in helping the school system meet payroll, the late June paychecks will be given around the beginning of July when the new fiscal year starts.
On Thursday, lawmakers questioned why Boone schools are in line to get a special appropriation but not schools in other counties that face financial struggles.
Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone and a supporter of the bill, said some senators want funding for schools in the counties they represent added to the legislation.
"It's running into some trouble because of the Christmas-tree effect," Stollings said, referring to a bill that attracts many riders.
"If the rest of the state thinks they're going to jump on this, and Boone County is drowning, there's something wrong with the entire state," said Carrena Rouse, head of the Boone arm of the American Federation of Teachers union.
"We have provided well more than our fair share of taxes to West Virginia for 100 years," said Delegate Josh Nelson, R-Boone. Nelson, in a news release supporting the bill, said "Now we're simply asking for the state to return the favor."
Lawmakers are expected to finish the special session without passing the bill. But they could take up the measure in two weeks, if Tomblin calls for another special session to deal with the state's $270 million budget shortfall.
Later Thursday, Stollings told the Gazette-Mail that he thinks the bill is still alive, but on Thursday evening lawmakers recessed without voting on the bill and planned to return June 12. He said he's heard of at least one more county that wants supplemental money too, but said the superintendents of Marion and Monongalia counties are supporting Boone's request without making requests of their own.
"These are unprecedented cuts that they've never seen the likes of, so some of these people not even in the region say 'Try to help them out if you can,'" Stollings said. He said he's hopeful lawmakers will give Boone the money when they return.
Generally, the state school aid funding formula calculates - largely based on enrollment - how much money each county needs to provide what the state considers an adequate education to students.
Through this method, intended to more equally fund property-rich and property-poor counties, the state forecasts how much money a county will raise through its state-set regular levy property tax rates and then provides state general revenue dollars to make up any gap between the local revenue and what is needed to provide that basic education. But the estimates of how much money Boone would raise in property tax revenue were made before coal company bankruptcy filings there - Hudson's letter said the bankruptcies of Alpha Natural Resources and Patriot Coal were largely to blame.
Jeff Huffman, a Boone assistant superintendent who will become superintendent when Hudson's contract ends this month, said the county assessor's office estimated that tax collections would drop about $2.4 million from last fiscal year to this one. But he said the drop has actually been about $9.3 million to date, and that unexpected $6.9 million loss represents 17 percent of the county's operating budget.
Boone's school board has received attention in recent months for voting to close three elementary schools and cut 80 positions, but these cost savings won't take effect until next fiscal year, which starts July 1.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.