Charleston Report with Delegate Gary Howell

August brought members of the West Virginia Legislature back to Charleston for another round of interim committee meetings. These meetings give us an opportunity between regular legislative sessions to take a deeper look at important issues, hear directly from those involved, and determine where changes to state law or policy may be needed.

With the 2027 Legislative Session getting closer, our interim work is beginning to shift from identifying problems and gathering information toward developing solutions. Over the next several months, many of the issues we have been studying will begin taking the form of proposed legislation, giving us an opportunity to examine and refine those ideas before the Legislature returns for the regular session in January.

At Sunday’s Joint Committee on Energy and Public Works, we heard from Appalachian Power, MonPower and Potomac Edison about storm preparation and restoring electric service following severe weather. Utilities begin preparing days before a major storm arrives, using weather forecasts, projected outage data and lessons learned from previous events to position crews and arrange outside assistance when conditions are expected to exceed local resources. When widespread outages occur, restoration follows a coordinated process that prioritizes public safety and critical infrastructure. Utilities work closely with emergency management and first responders while repairing the larger portions of the electrical system first. This allows crews to restore power to the greatest number of customers before moving on to smaller and individual outages.

At the Joint Committee on Finance, we continued examining the Department of Human Services performance audit and recommendations that could improve services while potentially saving taxpayers as much as $68.6 million annually. Christina Mullins told the committee that one significant opportunity involves modernizing the technology behind PATH. Rather than abandoning the more than $300 million system and starting over, the Department is looking at targeted improvements, including moving away from a 40 year old mainframe that contributes to slowdowns, outages and inefficient manual processes. That change alone could eventually produce approximately $7.2 million in annual savings. Another major area of concern is West Virginia’s reliance on out of state placements for children in the state’s care. These placements cost an average of approximately $142,000 per child while also taking children farther away from their families and communities. Developing additional capacity within West Virginia could reduce those costs while allowing more children to receive care closer to home, making this an important area for continued legislative attention.

We also received another encouraging report on West Virginia’s finances. Fiscal Year 2026 ended with $5.694 billion in General Revenue collections, exceeding the state’s official estimate by more than $370 million. More importantly, this was not simply the result of beating a conservative estimate. Actual collections increased by $174.4 million over Fiscal Year 2025. That growth was spread across several important parts of the state’s revenue picture. Sales and use tax collections increased 7.2%, personal income tax collections grew 2.5%, and severance tax collections jumped 21.8% compared with the previous year. At the same time, West Virginia remained within its appropriated General Revenue budget, spending approximately $5.155 billion of $5.322 billion in regular appropriations.

There will always be challenges to address, and we must remain careful with taxpayers’ money, but West Virginia’s overall financial position remains strong. Continued revenue growth and substantial year end surpluses give us opportunities to address long term needs, invest in infrastructure and essential services, and continue improving our state while maintaining the responsible budgeting that has put West Virginia on solid financial footing. Secretary of Health Dr. Arvin Singh also updated the Joint Committee on Finance on the $199.5 million Rural Health Transformation Program and how those federal dollars are beginning to move into projects across West Virginia. The state has drafted all of its Year 1 funding opportunities and released more than 80% of them, with approximately $38.8 million already obligated for awards as of August 3. The goal is not simply to spend grant money, but to use it to build a stronger and more sustainable rural health care system.

The initiatives address several challenges that are particularly important to West Virginia, including health care workforce shortages, transportation, chronic disease, access to maternal care, telehealth and helping people become healthy enough to return to the workforce. Applicants are being evaluated not only on what they propose to do, but also on whether their programs can launch quickly, produce measurable results and remain financially sustainable after the federal funding ends. That last point is particularly important. We want these dollars to create lasting improvements, not programs that disappear when the federal money runs out.

At the Joint Committee on Government and Finance, Deputy Revenue Secretary Pete Shirley presented U.S. Census Bureau data showing an encouraging change in West Virginia’s population trends. From April 2020 through July 2025, West Virginia experienced positive net migration of 21,691 people, meaning more people moved into the state than moved away. That represents a significant turnaround from much of the previous decade, when West Virginia regularly experienced negative net migration.
The numbers are also encouraging for Mineral County, which the Department of Revenue’s county map shows experiencing positive net migration during the same period. West Virginia still faces demographic challenges, but getting more people to choose our state and communities like Mineral County as their home is an important part of growing our workforce, economy and tax base. During the Joint Committee on Economic Development meeting we heard about an innovative effort to turn some of the money West Virginia businesses currently spend overseas into jobs here at home. At a joint meeting of the Joint Standing Committee on Economic Development and the Joint Committee on Energy and Public Works, we learned about ReshoreWV, an initiative working to identify goods West Virginia companies purchase overseas and connect those buyers with West Virginia manufacturers that may be able to produce them.

With nearly $4.9 billion in annual imports, bringing even a portion of that production back home could create significant opportunities for our existing manufacturers. The initiative estimates that capturing approximately 14% of those imports could result in $682 million in reshored production, approximately 3,478 jobs and $1.83 billion in economic activity. The goal is straightforward: strengthen our supply chains, support West Virginia manufacturers and create more good paying jobs here at home.
The work we do during interim meetings helps lay the groundwork for the decisions we will make when the Legislature returns in January. As we identify both challenges and opportunities, our focus is increasingly turning toward practical solutions and preparing legislation for the 2027 session that can continue moving West Virginia forward.

As always, if you need anything, have an idea about how we can make West Virginia better, or need assistance dealing with a state agency, please contact me at Gary.Howell@WVHouse.gov or by calling (304) 340-3191.