Directed to come up with an additional $90 million in budget cuts in the 2016-17 state budget, House and Senate Finance Committee members were able to cut barely a third of that amount in the soon-to-be vetoed budget bill passed Thursday (HB 101).
A review of the budget bill shows legislators found it difficult to slash funding for many longstanding programs in the budget.
A notable example is funding for fairs and festivals under state Lottery profits allocated to the Division of Culture and History.
It was one of several budget items targeted for cuts in the publication, "Wild and Wasteful West Virginia," produced by the national Taxpayers Protection Alliance and its state partner, the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy.
The appropriations to fairs and festivals around the state, the report contended, "forces people who cannot afford to attend fairs and festivals to subsidize the costs for those who can. It is a troubling 'Robin Hood in reverse' situation in which government takes tax dollars from the poor and gives them to the rich."
The governor's version of the budget bill kept Fairs and Festivals funding at the same level as this budget year, at $1.85 million.
A Senate version of the budget cut the appropriation by $463,000 - or about $8,000 more than what the first 13 days of the special session has cost in legislative pay and per-diem expense payments - to $1.39 million, about a 25 percent cut.
However, the version of the budget passed Thursday used the House's funding proposal for Fairs and Festivals of $1.67 million, roughly a 10 percent cut.
Similarly, the budget passed Thursday cut grants for various cultural and historic programs by 10 percent from the governor's budget proposal, from $4.74 million to $4.27 million.
Grants for the West Virginia, Wheeling, and Huntington symphonies were reduced from $82,025 to $73,824 each, while the West Virginia Public Theater was reduced from $166,693 to $150,024, and the Greenbrier Valley Theater was dropped from $138,254 to $124,429.
Other funding that survived cuts included "not less than $5,000" a year each from the House of Delegates and Senate accounts to the West Virginia Academy of Family Physicians to continue the "Doc of the Day" program during legislative sessions.
Under the program, a participating physician is introduced during each floor session in the House and Senate, and is available to provide medical information or services to legislators during the day.
More significant proposed cuts to the budget - including elimination of $15.1 million in greyhound purse and breeders' funds subsidies and $9 million of matching funds for racetrack casino improvements, and a revision of the School Aid Formula to save $15.2 million - were all lost when the Legislature failed to pass legislation necessary to make the cuts.
The budget bill did cut Department of Education and the Arts funding by about $1.3 million, to $5.1 million with the intent of eliminating the Office of the Secretary, with this directive:
"In this time of structural deficit and declining industrial base, it is the intention of the Legislature to reorganize the department's programming and divisions in the 2017 regular session, eliminating the Office of the Secretary and distributing all administrative responsibilities for its composite programs and divisions to other units of government."
Similarly, the budget bill cut funding for the State Rail Authority, Division of Public Transit, Public Port Authority, and Aeronautics Commission by 10 percent each, with the intent, according to the budget bill, that the agencies be, "jointly administered by the Secretary of Transportation to consolidate staff functions and improve efficiencies. It is envisioned that these four discrete accounts may be further consolidated into a single account in the FY 2018 budget."
The bill also directs that no funding be spent on maintenance or operation of the state's Cessna Grand Caravan, the smaller of the two airplanes in the state aviation fleet, except as necessary for preparation for the sale of the 2009 aircraft.
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304 348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.