West Virginia
$465 million problem is whether West Virginia made spending on education enough of a priority – WV MetroNews
West Virginia has a $465 million question with the federal government based not on any allegations of misspending — but instead over whether school systems fell short on an obligation to maintain financial support for education at levels in line with overall spending.
A revelation of the hundreds of millions of dollars at issue has introduced uncertainty into the legislative budgeting process, with a special session already being planned for May when the situation could be more clear.
Meanwhile, officials are working to resolve concerns of federal authorities, potentially by demonstrating an emphasis on better pay for educators and greater investment in school facilities.
“The issue is, did the state of West Virginia raise its educational spending in proportion to its overall spending,” said Brian Abraham, chief of staff for the Justice administration, on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”
West Virginia may be able to work out the matter, again, with the federal government. But what’s on the line is significant.
Guidance released in April, 2021, specifies that if a state fails to meet requirements, then federal officials could seek recovery of funds, commonly described as a “clawback.”
Citing ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Department of Administration, Gov. Jim Justice in a Saturday afternoon statement said “Let me be very clear on this issue: there is no $465 million ‘clawback’ on the table.”
‘Maintenance of effort’
West Virginia, like other states, drew down millions of dollars in covid relief from the federal government. One of those sources was the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund.
That fund has a requirement known as maintenance of effort, a standard introduced on April 21, 2021 requiring the state to keep the same proportional level of funding for schools as it had before the pandemic. That was measured in comparison to the state’s spending in other areas.
Abraham said that standard was a challenge for West Virginia because of its formulas in state law for education funding. For example, under West Virginia’s school funding system, the state funds a certain number of teachers and other educational positions for each school district based on the district’s student enrollment.
“So there’s not really ways you can direct money into educational spending except for things like pay raises, school building authority, et cetera,” Abraham said.
The governor’s Saturday press release put it differently:
“They penalize West Virginia for its economic success and investing in roads, infrastructure, and bringing good-paying jobs to West Virginians, despite our increased investment in our schools,” Governor Justice stated.
Waivers
West Virginia’s submissions to the U.S. Department of Education show pre-pandemic spending on K-12 education of $2.007 billion in 2017, $2.023 billion in 2018 and $2.095 billion in 2019.
The post-pandemic spending dipped to $2.009 billion in 2022 before going up to $2.062 billion in 2023.
That occurred as West Virginia’s state budgets, more generally, were growing — from $4.82 billion overall spending in 2017 to $5.3 billion in 2022 before dropping back to $5.07 billion in 2023.
The Saturday statement from the Justice administration contended, “This issue started several years ago, under a prior State Superintendent who failed to adequately address the issue and failed to tell the State Board of Education.”
The statement describes broader efforts to get a handle on the matter, starting with Michele Blatt being named state superintendent of schools on July 1, 2023. Prior to that, Blatt had been deputy superintendent.
“When Superintendent Blatt was appointed, she brought the issue to my attention, and my Chief of Staff and others have been working directly with the federal DOE to negotiate a solution,” Justice stated.
But West Virginia officials had been working on the situation well before that, according to documents bearing the governor’s signature.
On June 21, 2022, West Virginia recognized its jam and asked for a federal waiver. That request contended “West Virginia has continued to make consistent investments in K-12 and higher education based on the state’s codified school funding laws, which are incompatible with the parameters” of the maintenance of effort standard.
An attachment with more detail about the state’s reasons, signed by Governor Justice, described declining enrollment in the school system. But the document made a case that West Virginia had increased its per-pupil spending.
West Virginia’s submission calculated that K-12 per pupil spending was $8,010 in 2022 and $8,219 in 2023. That compared to an average of $7,570 spending per pupil in the three years prior to the pandemic.
And the document maintained that comparisons of education spending to overall spending got out of whack because of new, increased spending in the state healthcare system, prompted by the covid-19 pandemic.
On June 12, 2023 — about a year after West Virginia made its waiver request — the federal Office of Elementary and Secondary Education approved it. The federal authorities noted that West Virginia had underperformed the maintenance of effort standards for fiscal 2022 by $23.7 million.
The federal authorities observed that “West Virginia demonstrated a commitment to State support for elementary and secondary education in future fiscal years by increasing State aid for elementary and secondary education in the State FY 2024 budget.” That included pay raises for educators and increased funding for school construction and maintenance.
So the federal authorities gave West Virginia a pass for its fiscal 2022 spending — but that correspondence included a note that it was premature at the time to make a determination on West Virginia’s request for a waiver on 2023 maintenance of effort requirements.
That 2023 spending is the issue that broke into the wild this week.
Documents on file with the federal Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and signed by Governor Justice this past Feb. 21 show West Virginia making its case to receive a waiver for that fiscal 2023 spending requirement.
The request made a case that “when looking at total education spending, the state continues to increase its total spending on education despite the declining enrollment trends.
“So not only did the state maintain it’s funding formula on a per-pupil-basis, it continued to increase funding to education over and above the state required formula as can be seen with the increasing education funding trend compared to the decreasing enrollment trend.”
The waiver requests were publicly available on the federal education website, but flew under the radar until last week when lawmakers started discussing specific allocations in the state budget. Some allocations that would have been routine were being held in abeyance until the multi-million dollar federal problem could become clearer.
“We’ve been told by the federal Department of Education that we are $465 million in a clawback situation,” House Finance Chairman Vernon Criss told delegates and the other onlookers in the House Finance room.
He continued, “I’m calling this act one. We hope to be back in May with a special session, with the governor’s permission, to know first of all that we’ll have that taken care of” before moving toward a lot of spending decisions that would normally be routine.
‘Spend money on education’
Internally, the Department of Revenue had been collecting information “for months,” Abraham said, gathering financial information from various state agencies to submit to the federal education authorities. Abraham expressed confidence the matter can be resolved.
“We were kind of taken aback when it came out in the Finance hearing as if we’re in some kind of crisis mode,” he said. “There’s not a likelihood the department would ask us to pay back the money to Washington. Rather, what they’re asking us to do is spend money on education in West Virginia to match our overall spending.”
That could be accomplished, Abraham said, by increased spending on educator salaries and improvements to school maintenance and construction.
The governor proposed and the House of Delegates has passed a bill representing average 5 percent pay raises for educators. A fiscal note estimates that’s a $77.5 million outlay. The House Finance Committee last week advanced a $150 million supplemental appropriation for School Building Authority projects all around the state.
Senate Finance Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, has expressed skepticism about whether the state can afford the ongoing cost of the pay raises. The Senate’s budget, passed last week, does not include the raises. “It gives me heartburn to go into a perpetual spend in that base, not knowing exactly where we stand with fiscal impact,” Tarr said last week on “Talkline.”
Governor Justice, in the Saturday statement, said it’s important to move ahead with the pay raises and increased support for school construction and maintenance.
““Again, I’m confident that we will reach a positive resolution quickly, and I call on the Legislature to act swiftly on my proposed budget, including the historic pay raise for educators and the unprecedented funding for our School Building Authority,” Justice stated.
“This isn’t just about meeting federal expectations; it’s about our ongoing commitment to improving education for all West Virginians.”
Impact on students
The U.S. Department of Education guidelines say decisions on waivers “will be rooted in the consideration of the impact on students.” The purpose of the federal funds, the guidelines indicate, “is to expand resources for K-12 and postsecondary schools and students, not to replace existing state commitments.”
Among the questions the Department of Education asks are: Has total state funding for education increased from the prior fiscal year? Has per pupil funding increased from the prior year?
The progressive-leaning West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy had this advice: “To Comply with the Feds, West Virginia Must Pass a Strong Budget.”
“Rather than facing clawbacks to federal money, the legislature should pass a budget that increases funding for and adequately supports our public education and health care systems—not only to be in compliance with federal requirements but also because it’s the right thing to do for our people and our economy,” wrote Kelly Allen, executive director of the center.
Joshua Weishart, a West Virginia lawyer with expertise in education rights, said the real misstep by the state has been to not maintain appropriate investment in the education system overall.
“The story here is that the state flagrantly and unconstitutionally disinvested in public education even when it had an excess in federal funding to make those investments,’ Weishart said.
“The state chose instead to be excused from federal law because of declining enrollment, deliberately oblivious to the reality that, though perhaps fewer in number, our students have greater, unprecedented educational needs, which the unprecedented cash from the feds was supposed to meet.”
Governor Justice, in his statement issued Saturday, agreed that it would be better for West Virginia to spend more on education than to suffer the consequences of a clawback.
“It’s my strong belief that we should spend this money on investments in education at home,” Justice said, “rather than letting the federal government take money from our county schools and colleges and universities.”
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – West Virginia Virtual Academy celebrated its second graduating class Tuesday at the Clay Center.
The ceremony featured a keynote speech and performance from West Virginia native and season six winner of America’s Got Talent’ Landau Eugene Murphy Jr., where he set out to inspire the class.
The class graduated 140 students, with eight earning a Promise Scholarship and 26 intending to attend college in the fall.
The academy’s director Doug Cipoletti said the virtual learning is about more than sitting behind a screen.
“Then we provide this [ceremony] where kids can actually come together and meet one another and build those relationships,” Cipoletti said. “So yes, we’re a virtual school, but there’s a lot more to it than just being behind a computer and I think that really shows today.”
West Virginia Virtual Academy is a K-12 school.
Copyright 2026 WSAZ. All rights reserved.
West Virginia
West Virginia Democrats have an open competition at the top of the state party – WV MetroNews
West Virginia Democrats have a competition for leader of the state party.
Teresa Toriseva, who currently serves as first vice chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, says she is running for the top spot currently held by Mike Pushkin, who also serves as a state delegate from Charleston.
“This is not a civil war within the Democratic Party. On the contrary, the party is quite unified in message and in mission. And that’s what I found as I’ve been campaigning to run for chair, and I’ve never believed it to be more true,” Toriseva said on MetroNews Midday. “It’s an exciting time for what is a growing, robust opposition party.”
But, “There has been a call for us to prepare for the future better and differently than the past and one of those things that I’m going to be focusing on is building relationships with coalition members from groups that think like us, groups that want to work together with us, from labor to women’s groups to organizing groups that are on the ground doing the work, bringing messages to voters.”
Toriseva is a Wheeling attorney who ran in 2024 for state attorney general, losing in the general election.
Democrats, which used to be the dominant political party in West Virginia, now have almost 327,000 registered voters in the state, about 27% of the overall number of registered voters.
The Republican Party has more than 521,000 registered voters, about 43% of the total number.
Toriseva says Democrats have had a successful period of candidate recruitment that can serve as a base for revitalization.
“Democrats are back, and does that mean we’re going to look like we did a decade ago? No, it’s a new party, and we’re moving forward in a new way, but the future is going to look very different than the past,” she said.
Democrats, under the direction of their own bylaws and state code, are having an organizational meeting at 3 p.m. Saturday in Charleston. The meeting’s focus will be on the election of officers. The meeting will be broadcast to the public via wvdemocrats.com/live
Toriseva has worked alongside Pushkin as one of the top officers of the party for the past several years.
“It’s either have an election now or anoint the incumbent for four more years, and so I do think that elections are healthy, that competitive elections are a sign of a growing and robust party and I don’t think that it’s any indication of a civil war,” Toriseva said.
Pushkin, in response, agreed that anyone is entitled to run for chair and make their case to the members of the executive committee.
And he said the resurgence of the West Virginia Democratic Party has been the result of the hard work of county committees, labor organizations, women’s clubs, Young Democrats, grassroots activists, candidates and countless volunteers across the state.
“What leadership does deserve credit for is creating a plan, bringing people together around that plan, and providing the tools and support necessary to execute it. Our record-breaking candidate recruitment effort did not happen by accident,” Pushkin said.
He said party leaders developed an organizing strategy, held weekly recruitment calls, engaged county leaders and allied organizations, launched the first large-scale candidate recruitment texting program in party history and raised funds to cover filing fees for candidates willing to step forward and put their names on the ballot.
“The question before us now is not who gets credit. The question is whether we continue building on that momentum or allow ourselves to become distracted by internal disagreements while Republicans remain deeply divided,” Pushkin said.
“My focus remains exactly where it has always been: bringing Democrats together, supporting our candidates and taking the fight to Republicans every single day.”
West Virginia
More Mountaineer magic: Guzman’s walk-off single in 10th sends West Virginia to 6-5 win over Kentucky in regional championship – WV MetroNews
GRANVILLE, W.Va. — It was never going to be easy.
Not with the recent history in the Kentucky-West Virginia series, which consisted of four postseason contests decided by one or two runs across the last two years ahead of Monday’s meeting in the Morgantown Regional Championship at Kendrick Family Ballpark.
Sure enough, Kentucky strung together five straight hits with two outs in the eighth, including a three-run home run from Hudson Brown and a solo shot from Ethan Hindle to tie the winner-take-all affair at 5.
But West Virginia has consistently shown the ability to not waver, including one night earlier when it rallied with five runs in the ninth inning to knock off the Wildcats, 11-9.
This time around, the Mountaineers relied on pitcher Dawson Montesa in relief one day after a 122-pitch outing against Wake Forest. Montesa recorded a pair of pivotal outs in the top of the 10th inning, setting the stage for Armani Guzman’s walk-off single to center in the bottom of the 10th that gave WVU a 6-5 victory.
“That was fun. I couldn’t draw it up any better,” second-year WVU head coach Steve Sabins said. “Everything that you love about coaching and everything you love about players was on full display this weekend. It was cinema and had literally everything you can imagine. If you keep going and stick through adversity, then you can do incredible things.”
With the win, West Virginia (43-15) will play host to Cal Poly (39-22) in a best-of-three Super Regional series with the winner advancing to the College World Series. The Mountaineers and North Carolina are the only teams to qualify for a Super Regional each of the last three years.
Guzman’s single came off of Jack Bennett, who began his outing with 14 consecutive strikes and retired six straight Mountaineers over the eighth and ninth innings collectively.
“That was my third at bat against him,” Guzman said. “He got me to pop out on change-ups twice. That at bat, I wanted to see him deeper. I wanted to hit the ball as hard as I could and stay composed.”
The bottom of the 10th began with Brodie Kresser’s leadoff single against Bennett, who then missed with a full count offering to Ben Lumsden that put two on to start the inning.
Tyrus Hall then got ahead 2-0, but popped up a sacrifice bunt attempt for the first out.
Disappointment didn’t last long as Guzman got ahead 2-0 and hit a solid single that allowed Kresser to score the winning run.
It was another memorable postseason moment from Guzman, who a year ago was named MVP of the Clemson Regional.
“He likes the moment. He loves to win,” Sabins said of Guzman. “He’s probably the best athlete in the country. That doesn’t hurt him either. I love his makeup and mentality.”
Game 7 of the Morgantown Regional had a little bit of everything, including a bounce-back effort from Maxx Yehl.
The Big 12 Pitcher of the Year was knocked around and didn’t make it out the first inning Friday in what amounted to an 11-9 loss to UK.
This time around, he worked five effective innings and allowed one run on three hits. The southpaw struck out six without issuing a walk and was efficient, throwing 42 of 67 pitches for strikes.
“Grateful the coaches believed in me to give me the ball,” Yehl said, “and I was excited to get back out there and help the team win.”
After keeping UK (33-23) off the scoreboard in the top of the first, Yehl returned to the mound in the second the beneficiary of a 1-0 lead after a dropped third strike allowed Sean Smith to reach and Gavin Kelly to score from third. Kelly had doubled with one out off Wildcats’ starting pitcher Jackson Soucie.
Guzman’s speed was the biggest factor in WVU doubling its lead in the third.
He reached on a bunt single, stole second on a failed pickoff attempt, moved to third on Kelly’s groundout and crossed the plate on a Paul Schoenfeld groundout.
Brown’s solo home run off Yehl in the fourth allowed the Wildcats to get back to within one run.
Yehl induced an inning-ending double play off the bat of Owen Jenkins to end the top of the fifth and the Mountaineers put together their best offensive inning in the bottom of that frame.
It began with Guzman’s double to left, which was followed by Kelly’s base-on-balls and a run-scoring single from Schoenfeld.
Matthew Graveline made it a three-run margin later that inning when he doubled to plate Kelly.
Kelly’s solo home run in the sixth — his third of the regional and 16th this season — left WVU with a 5-1 advantage. He was named Most Valuable Player of the Morgantown Regional.
“It’s a team MVP. It’s unreal the stuff that everybody on this team did,” Kelly said. “Everyone on the team deserves that. We have a team full of MVPs. It’s hard to kill when you have that.”
Ian Korn made that lead hold up until the eighth despite retiring the first two batters of that inning. Tyler Bell prolonged it with a single, Luke Lawrence followed with another and Brown belted his second long ball of the night to bring UK to within one run.
“We weren’t trained at any point throughout the year to ever think we’re out of a game,” Brown said. “Coach always tells us to keep fighting.”
Hindle made it back-to-back home runs, at which point Korn was lifted for Chansen Cole.
Cole allowed a single to Braxton Van Cleave, but struck out Tyler Cerny to end the inning.
In the ninth, Cole issued a leadoff walk to Carson Hansen, but he was stranded at second.
Kentucky then made consistent hard contact against Cole in the 10th, including several foul balls by mere inches that otherwise likely would’ve gone as extra-base hits.
With Cole and Hindle involved in a lengthy battle, Sabins elected to pull Cole mid at-bat in favor of Montesa, who entered with the count 1-2.
Montesa ultimately walked Hindle, which left Kentucky with runners at first and second and one out. But the right-hander, whose velocity was in the high 90s, followed it up by striking out Van Cleave and got Cerny to fly out to left for what wound up Kentucky’s final at bat of the season.
“I was like I don’t know if we have something left in the tank to get this dude out,” Sabins said. “We might be standing here watching the next pitch as a Wildcat crosses home plate. We rushed Montesa. It wasn’t exactly a genius move, but it ended up playing out well.”
Montesa recorded his second win in as many days by recording the last two outs of the 10th.
Guzman led WVU and all players with three hits.
Brown drove in four of his team’s five runs.
“I would think anybody that watched our team play would have to respect what we’ve been able to do,” UK coach Nick Mingione said. “Not an easy place to play like anywhere on the road in our league, but anybody that follows baseball, I really believe they would say we have gained a lot of respect.”
The third largest crowd in Kendrick Family Ballpark history of 4,607 took in the instant classic.
“It’s been cemented that this is the best college baseball atmosphere in the country,” Sabins said. “Nowhere can provide the energy that just happened in Morgantown. The place was absolutely electric.”
All-Morgantown Regional Team
C: Matt Conte, Wake Forest
1B: Armani Guzman, West Virginia
2B: Gavin Kelly, West Virginia
SS: Tyler Bell, Kentucky
3B: Tyrus Hall, West Virginia
LF: Ben Lumsden, West Virginia
CF: Javar Williams, Wake Forest
RF: Braxton Van Cleave, Kentucky
DH: Luke Lawrence, Kentucky
P: Chansen Cole, WVU
P: Dawson Montesa, WVU
Regional MVP: Gavin Kelly, WVU
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