Showers and a possible thunderstorm during the evening will give way to cloudy skies after midnight. Low 51F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%..
Tonight
Showers and a possible thunderstorm during the evening will give way to cloudy skies after midnight. Low 51F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey says West Virginia is facing a $400 million budget shortfall in the next fiscal year, and he is bringing out the scissors to cut spending as a result.
The situation is a combination of flat budgets and low-ball revenue estimates under his predecessor, now Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., along with one-time funding from federal COVID relief efforts. Justice presented the less-than-honest numbers as a large surplus for the state, in turn justifying slashing the state’s income tax — its largest source of revenue — by more than 27% by the time Justice left office.
Morrisey is left with a big problem, although it turns out there were some paths to savings while Justice was in office and Morrisey was still attorney general.
In fact, the state could’ve saved up to nearly $500,000 had it not hired outside counsel for at least eight lawsuits it had to defend dating back to 2020. That’s not $400 million, but it’s not nothing, either.
Sure, in some of these cases, outside counsel might’ve been necessary. The majority of spending, according to a Gazette-Mail article by reporter Mike Tony, went to legal counsel in separate lawsuits about deplorable conditions in West Virginia’s regional jails. Morrisey tapped outside counsel in those cases because there was an immediate need for legal services and potential conflicts of interest had lawyers from the Attorney General’s Office gotten involved (not that Justice ever had any problems with conflicts of interest).
Fine, say the state couldn’t have avoided spending most of that $500,000 of taxpayer money (along with $4 million to settle one of the prison lawsuits) to hire outside counsel. But there’s more than $71,000 the state never should’ve spent, and it can be chalked up to Justice’s stubbornness, disinterest in governing — and maybe even laziness.
It cost $71,000 in taxpayer dollars to provide outside counsel for the lawsuit brought against Justice for failing to live at the “seat of government,†as the state constitution requires. Had Justice simply lived in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä or even spent a decent amount of his time in the capital city while governor, this never would’ve happened.
Justice notably refused to live in the Governor’s Mansion — or anywhere in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä — instead staying at his home in Lewisburg, slightly more than a two-hour drive from the Capitol. The governor’s absence and lack of day-to-day involvement in the affairs of state, especially during the legislative session, was noticeable and was particularly obvious when teachers and school service personnel from all 55 counties went on strike in 2018, demanding a fix to the volatile Public Employees Insurance Agency and seeking a pay increase. Justice entered the situation late and ill-informed, at one point declaring he had negotiated a solution and the strike was over, when nothing could’ve been further from the truth.
As has been said before, if Justice had shown up enough and put in a decent amount of effort befitting the highest elected position in the state, no one would’ve had a problem with where he slept at night. The lawsuit filed by then-Delegate Isaac Sponaugle over Justice flouting the state constitution was a way to try and get Justice to do his job. And it ended up costing the state $71,000 in outside attorney fees — nearly $20,000 more than what the average West Virginian earns in a year — for Justice to agree to adhere to the law (although whether he ever did abide by that settlement is highly questionable).
Maybe $71,000 isn’t a lot of money when looking at overall spending or massive financial shortfalls, but it’s a prime example of government waste caused by an elected official who decries such things. That begs the question of whether there were enough similar instances around Justice’s tenure that might’ve amounted to serious money that could’ve made the situation the state is now facing at least a little less severe.
