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How will West Virginia’s budget crisis affect you? How did we get into the crisis in the first place? And how can we get out?
On Tuesday at West Virginia University, Ted Boettner, Executive Director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, plans to get wonky and dive into the details of West Virginia’s current budget situation. All are welcome to attend.
The event will be held on the University’s downtown campus in the Mountainlair’s Rhododendron Room at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, September 6. In case you can’t attend in-person, the discussion will be live-streamed.
Spoiler Alert: It isn’t good. Though the state was able to “band-aid” the $250 million dollar hole in this year’s budget, the budget hole for FY2018 is upwards of $300 million dollars. Lawmakers remain divided on how to close the budget gap.
“Years of shrinking funding have undermined West Virginia’s most important public investments, such as higher education,” Boettner says. “The state now faces another significant budget shortfall next year that could result in more unaffordable spending cuts that continue to erode core public services that provide a foundation for prosperity in the state.”
“Unless lawmakers act, the state will continue to underinvest in its workforce and infrastructure and diminish its ability to provide long-term economic growth and improve the health of its communities.”
The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy is a public policy research organization that is nonpartisan, nonprofit, and statewide. The Center focuses on how policy decisions affect all West Virginians, especially low- and moderate-income families.
For more information, visit www.wvpolicy.org
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