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grow more information at segra.com welcome to the legislature today i'm dave misdich this week we'll hear from lawmakers on the house finance committee about the status of governor jim justice's plan to reduce the state's personal income tax which comes along with hikes to consumer sales and other taxes there's plenty of opportunity for us and we're taking every consideration from the caucus as well as the members on the finance committee and the chairman to come up with maybe an alternative to what the governor has proposed and and hopefully here shortly we will be able to see all those opportunities out before us there's been a lot of concerns expressed over who does it help but who does it hurt and i think that's one of the guiding principles that we're going to have going forward in any plan that we support is is who does this help and who does it hurt because we really want to try to get our folks in west virginia to stay we want to rebuild our state and we want them to succeed we'll hear more about the governor's sweeping tax reform measure and its chances in the house of delegates later in the show but first we'll recap a couple of bills that have made news this week one that's now passed one chamber and another that remains stalled today the house of delegates passed house bill 2174 on a 70-28 vote after adopting several amendments to the bill the measure would protect monuments honoring historical events and figures from being removed renamed or relocated from public property under the proposal the state historic preservation office would be able to issue permits to grant exceptions on wednesday the house government organization committee held a public hearing on house bill 2174. every one of the speakers at the hour-long hearing urged lawmakers to reject the bill arguing the measure was created to protect monuments that honor the confederacy and white supremacist ideologies on the house floor democrats like delegate evan hansen and delegate daniel walker both of monongalia county and delegate sean fluharty of ohio county echoed sentiments expressed in wednesday's public hearing down by in between my office is where i enter the building every day i walk by it on my way into work and out of work every day and i'm not happy that it's there i wish we could remove it and place it in a museum that's where i think it belongs it offends me that that bust is placed in a position where it's sanctioned by the state of west virginia and honored by the state of west virginia instead of treated as a historical monument the red button will stop the hate the red button will elevate the voices who opposes this bill the red button will illustrate that you and our state denounce white supremacy the red button will acknowledge that slavery was wrong and is wrong the red button will move our state forward so west virginians can stay rebuild and succeed but let's talk about the green button the green button will promote hate in our state the green button will celebrate the years of oppression of free labor hangings beatings shackles and chains the green button will send a clear message to black and brown people that you live in a colorless society which is dangerous detrimental and deadly a green button will congratulate the losing team and a green button is the ultimate award of participation what the hell are we doing see wheeling birthplace of the state independence hall slavery was debated in independence hall we decided to become west virginia and be on the right side of history and we're here today debating whether we should celebrate and continue to celebrate and protect the confederacy what state are we in again but republicans like delegate mark zotezolo of hancock county and house government organization chair brandon steele argued house bill 2174 is not only about protecting confederate monuments they said the measure offers a process for monuments and markers to be moved or renamed if the public and other entities choose to petition the state i for one will tell you this and it really angers me to take abraham lincoln's name off of school in san francisco tells me a lot about what what's going on in the country do we want that do we want the statue of abraham lincoln taken out because somebody doesn't like it i don't think so is that what this is this bill to to block white supremacists from having their statute removed no i think what it is is to have a thoughtful conversation about what we can take down and what we won't take down i find it interesting that the minority has sat here for the last two hours lecturing us on a monument that sat there for the 84 years prior to republicans even being in control and they did not manage to remove it but what this build does today is actually puts into play at the ability to remove something that is offensive to everyone that we could unanimously decide there it gives a process for it it gives an application for it it gives municipalities a role in it it gives people a role in it it gives the state curator a role in it it's not decided by the people in this body it's decided by the historians that we've that we've appointed to protect the history and promote the history of our state this is not a racist bill hitting green on this bill is not a racist move the sponsors are not satanic this bill sets up a process that we have the courage to have the debate action on house bill 2174 came just days after a rally saturday in support of the crown act the bill which has been introduced in both the house and senate seeks to end discrimination based on hairstyles delegate walker who is one of just three black lawmakers at the state house explains the discrimination she and other people of color face as it relates to their hair see it's not the kink in my hair it's the kink in your mind it is not my curls as being a curse it is my crown and it is disgusting that in 2021 we have to educate people on the trauma and the turmoil and the barriers and the boundaries my natural hair has placed on me morgantown and charleston have both recently passed resolutions in support of the crown act at the state house the effort has been introduced as senate bill 108 and house bill 2698 although neither version has been taken up by a committee in either chamber we switched gears now to check in on a much-watched piece of legislation that would establish publicly funded education savings accounts in west virginia to be applied to the costs of private and home schooling education reporter liz mccormick brings us some of the debate in the senate earlier this week house bill 2013 would create the hope scholarship program the program establishes education vouchers for public school students who are interested in switching to home or private school a student could receive a roughly 4 600 voucher per year based on the current state school aid formula these vouchers would be used for things like tuition at a private school tutoring or an after school program the bill also says that if less than 5 percent of students take part in the program in its first year then in 2026 the program would open to all current west virginia private and homeschool students regardless of whether that student ever attended public school if that happens it could cost about 100 million dollars a year if all private and homeschool students took part according to the west virginia department of education senator amy grady a republican from mason county who is a public school teacher and has voted alongside democrats at times on education-related legislation spoke in favor of the bill grady says she'd been on the fence about how she would vote but ultimately voted in support pointing to a student she taught with severe dyslexia i often wonder what happened to him as he moved on through bigger schools and people didn't really understand what he needed and i thought about more students that that could affect she argued that having access to an esa could have given her student more options that clarity to me thinking about that student and the difference that i made the difference that the difference that something like this could make in his life and lives of students like him makes me think twice most republicans have argued the program would ensure an even playing field for all west virginia students and gives families choice but democrats have argued the bill is costly and would negatively affect funding for public education senator william ehlenfeld a democrat from ohio county called the bill financial recklessness we can't be lulled into believing that the financial picture in the state of west virginia is better than it really is it's not it's flat employment is flat revenue's flat he went on to say the legislature should tread cautiously so i'm not standing up here in opposition to the concept of an esa which i know exists in a handful of other states what i'm saying is that if we're going to go down this path we should be careful democrats have also pointed to concerns over discrimination minority leader stephen baldwin of greenbrier county spoke against the bill saying its reach is too broad and doesn't ensure that any student regardless of background could receive it this particular bill is not a targeted bill it's wide open so it doesn't target the aid towards the students who need it the most a student who needs it the most could be denied admission in the first place because they're a problem student because they're disabled because they have a lifestyle that isn't agreed to by the folks who are admitting those students but republicans in support of the bill say private schools are held to the same state and federal laws as public schools and must accept anyone senate education chair senator patricia rucker of jefferson county says the hope scholarship program would be no different you know this legislation actually is open it understands and accepts that there is a diversity in our state it understands that people come from all walks of life it contemplates that if that child is not being served and it doesn't matter how much money the parents make it doesn't matter what the child's particular demographic is where they are in the state it doesn't matter their background doesn't matter their ability what matters in this legislation is you are not thriving and you are looking for help and we are giving them an option house bill 2013 passed the senate 20-13 with republican senators bill hamilton of upshur county and eric nelson of kanawha county voting against the measure for the legislature today i'm liz mccormick now we go to the state capitol for a conversation with house finance vice chair vernon chris of wood county and house finance minority chair brent boggs of braxton county gentlemen thanks for joining us today thank you for having us thank you dave all eyes over the past few weeks have been on governor jim justice's plan to reduce the state's personal income tax by 60 percent for all filers ahead of the session senate president craig blair also touted this idea and we've seen the rollout of the governor's plan in the past few weeks which has become house bill 2027 and senate bill 600 the personal income tax rollback would reduce revenue by more than a billion dollars and also calls for significant hikes on tobacco alcohol and soda most notably the consumer sales tax would jump from 6 percent to 7.9 making it the highest state sales tax rate in the nation i'd like to start by giving you both a moment to react to the governor's plan delegate chris we'll start with you i think that the opportunities that the governor laid out there are are going to be difficult for the republican caucus to take up there are a lot of moving parts to his plan and but we're going to take you know we're considering each one of them as we sit here today and try to evaluate through our caucus how much opportunity there is for us to do anything with it right and delegate bogs well obviously it's it has a lot of controversy surrounding it we've looked at it extensively we've met with the governor on a couple occasions uh it does have a lot of moving parts and it is in a situation where uh there's been a lot of concerns expressed over who does it help but who does it hurt and i think that's one of the guiding principles that we're going to have going forward in any plan that we support is is who does this help and who does it hurt because we really want to try to get our folks in west virginia to stay we want to rebuild our state and we want them to succeed so that's going to have a big bearing in what we do but right now there doesn't seem to be a lot of support for the governor's initial plan that he came out with right business groups such as the business and industry council and the west virginia chamber of commerce have come out against the governor's plan some specific industries like brewers in the state have also voiced opposition to the tax reform proposal delica chris what would you say to these groups that are against the governor's plan uh about as to how the house finance committee will approach the proposal well we want to look at each one of these uh taxes that he's asking to replace the personal income tax with try to come up with a plan that will minimize that if anything but again because the caucus is still not trying to say no but we are in a situation where there's just not a lot of support for his plan and we're trying to work through that angelica chris are there any particular sticking points early on or is it you know all sort of fair game at this point i think it's all fair game the the professional sales tax things have a lot of problems for a lot of us i know that the in the banking industry that my family is involved in and has been for over 80 years there's a lot of consternation to what he has asked for and it's going to be very delicate to the banking industry if this proceeds delegate bogs democrats of course are far outnumbered in the makeup of the finance committee and also on the house floor what does the minority plan uh plan to offer to this proposal and are you feeling as though the super majority republicans are giving you all an opportunity to weigh in well once we get the proposal out in front of us that we can actually see the proposal i hope my good friend and the chairman will allow us to weigh in and excuse me offer some meaning proposals but we also want to focus on some of the areas that that we can look at that might help keep our keep some of the folks in west virginia that we're trying to address i mean it's all about population and growth right now and we're other than a couple areas of the state we're suffering from a lack of growth and population laws so i think that things like how can we target our college graduates with possible tax credits vocational school graduates with tax credits to stay instead of leaving the state jobs to help them stay here are professionals with nurses our teachers our seniors there's a number of different things like that that we can do that we can maybe target specific groups and then expand on that but i think we've got some opportunities to work together because i believe that the best piece of legislation that you can always have is a bipartisan piece of legislation and delegate chris on your side is there you know any any number of of ideas uh like the ones that delegate boggs offered there yes there's there's plenty of opportunity for us and we're taking every consideration from the caucus as well as the members on the finance committee and the chairman to come up with maybe an alternative to what the governor has proposed and and hopefully here shortly we will be able to see all those opportunities out before us um you know while we understand that the governor's plan is likely to take on a different form you know in his plan there was the possibility of some state some cuts to state agencies and programs um you know is that uh is that possible in the budget um you know given um the the the the proposal that the governors put out but also what what you guys might come up with yourselves well i can tell you that he proposed a general 25 million dollar cut to the budget but he didn't get specific in his answers and so therefore he said for us to try to find those and we'll have to you know take that as an opportunity to try to help find those things delegate boggs you want to weigh in on the possibility of any cuts to state agencies well that's always the most uh troubling aspect of any budget and certainly a comprehensive proposal that deals with taxes that where you're planning to cut sales you're cutting income tax but then making it up in other places you know i i just don't believe that we can cut higher ed i don't believe we can cut public ad there are some bills that are running that are going to already take money out of public ed so i think that we've got to be very very cautious that we don't hurt people that we're trying to help on one hand but we're actually hurting them on the back side delegate chris i want to you know continue down that line on the budget the the tax bill would obviously impact the budget immensely we know that the governor has called for essentially a flat budget this coming year compared to where we are now how do you see the budget playing out and can we what can we expect to see given the dynamic between this tax bill and the budget itself well part of his the governor's plan was to implement part of this program middle in mid-year for in the fiscal year starting january one that's going to be problematic to the the budget that we're working on trying to come up with a plan that will take that into consideration if we decide to do something with his plan delegate boggs any thoughts to the on the governor's budget proposal and what west virginians should be keeping an eye on as this session heads toward the door to close well i think some of the most uh while we've had a lot of controversial bills and a lot of things that have happened in the first 30 days of the session this last half of the session i think it's most of it is going to revolve around the budget and some other issues but i think that we need to be very careful and very cautious because like my friend from wood mentioned we have to we have to watch out and make sure that we don't do something on one hand everybody wants to jump on the tax cut train no one wants to be left off of it but we've got to be very careful of where that train is going if we're not very cautious then we're going to get ourselves in a budget a budget issue that we may wish we had gone another direction i want to follow up with that uh what you said there and ask your delegate chris um about you know this year's budget um from what we understand didn't have the six year you know outlook um as it has in years past um and and i think that there's a lot of people worried about not having that that look ahead do you see that being a problem in putting together this year's budget um you know based on the governor's proposal no i don't think so we're watching the revenues uh as we always do uh on the current budget and and the trending on it to be able to project what we will need for next year and then based upon his uh revenue estimates for next year and the flat budget that he produced to us uh i think we'll be able to come up with a situation where we i think everybody will be comfortable provided what we do with his tax cut and interfere uh with the second half of the fiscal year delegate boggs any concerns about the you know the future of the state's budget well i think as we're talking about tax cuts in the state's budget we need to be very very aware that if we do anything going forward with taxes it might involve triggers those triggers need to be based on realistic figures as opposed to something that's maybe artificially low and then we have a a very good year next year with some tax collections that we didn't anticipate or that weren't really would be one time situations like state tax collections from the federal unemployment benefit extensions that have been sent out if we are not careful we could artificially hit some triggers and then find ourselves in a real dilemma two three four years down the road well uh that's house finance vice chair vernon chris of wood county and minority chair brent boggs of braxton county thank you both for joining us thank you dave thank you very much that does it for tonight's episode of the legislature today for more coverage of the 2021 legislative session tune in to west virginia morning on radio on weekdays at 7 46 a.m you can also follow along with coverage on our website at wvpublic.org and for live action on the floor of both the house and senate tune into the west virginia channel on television and stream it online at wvpublic.org thanks for joining us tonight stay well and be safe [Music] support for the legislature today is provided by marshall university with more than 100 degree programs offered in four locations and online more about the marshall family at marshall.edu west virginia university a land grant space grant r1 research institution learn more at wvu.edu segra providing fiber-based communication solutions segra freedom to grow more information at segra.com you're watching west virginia public broadcasting