West Virginia will not face repayment of $465 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds, alleviating concerns raised by state lawmakers during the March legislative session.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Gov. Jim Justice announced Friday that West Virginia will not face a rollback of $465 million in COVID-19 relief funding from the U.S. Department of Education, and the state House of Representatives will not face a rollback of $465 million in COVID-19 relief funding from the U.S. Department of Education. Allayed concerns raised by lawmakers. March session.
The Republican governor said in a statement that federal authorities have requested a waiver of the funding, which is part of more than $1 billion in federal aid the state has received to support students during the COVID-19 pandemic. said it was approved.
To receive the money, states had to keep education funding at or above the same level as before the pandemic. In other words, federal funds can supplement, but not replace, existing state investments in education.
For the federal spending packages passed in 2020 and 2021, it meant a dollar-for-dollar game. The federal government surveyed the percentage of each state's total budget spent on education in 2022 and 2023.
In West Virginia, these regulations were waived in 2022. Lawmakers were working to complete a state budget by the end of the session in March, but the state had not been approved for a waiver for 2023.
The question has thrown the state's budget process into disarray, creating uncertainty in the days leading up to the 60-day legislative session, when lawmakers are expected to pass a “slim budget” and expect a clearer fiscal picture in May. He said he would reconvene to deal with unfinished business.
The judge said at the time that his office was negotiating with the federal government to find a positive resolution, citing funds that go toward school services and teacher pay raises every year since 2018, when school employees went on strike over school conditions. He said he was looking forward to it.
He praised the federal government's decision Friday and said he had no concerns that the exemption would not be approved.
“This announcement was not a surprise and was never a real problem,” Justice said.
He also said the state is building projects to improve math and reading comprehension and is putting money toward putting assistive devices in classrooms. The state announced it would spend $8,464 per K-12 student in 2024, compared to $7,510 in his first year as governor in 2017, according to federal filings.
However, as state spending increased overall (from $4.9 billion in 2017 to $6.2 billion in 2023), the share of spending on education decreased. A key indicator that eased the federal government's decision was that education's share of the budget pie fell by 8 percentage points, from 51 percent in 2017 to 43 percent last year.
The judge said the state's investments in education speak for themselves, and state leaders approved $150 million for the state School Construction Authority in the state budget for the fiscal year starting in July. did.
