By Steven Allen Adams
For The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Charleston — With the 2026 legislative session ending at midnight Saturday, the House of Delegates spent nearly two hours Friday rejecting all but one amendment to a bill to provide a 5% tax cut to West Virginians, while the state Senate added locality pay to a 4% pay raise bill.
The House amended and passed Senate Bill 392, Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s bill to cut personal income tax rates by 5% retroactive to Jan. 1, returning $125 million to taxpayers when fully implemented. The bill passed 88-8 with three absent or not voting and now heads back to the Senate for that body to concur or reject the House amendment.
After multiple amendments were considered and rejected Friday afternoon, a majority of delegates voted to adopt an amendment offered by House Majority Whip Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, to remove from the bill a new tax increase – included in the Senate’s version – on vape and e-cigarette products that would have generated an additional $16 million.
Speaking in favor of his amendment, which was adopted on a voice vote, Gearheart said the Senate should have sent over a separate bill to increase vape and e-cigarette taxes instead of putting the increase in a bill meant to cut taxes.
“On occasion, the Senate thinks they can do to us whatever they want to do to us. I don’t think that’s right,” Gearheart said. “I think we’re violating our own rules by doing this. And I think we’re violating our own conscience by voting for a tax increase at the same time we’re voting for a tax cut.”
Del. Gary Howell, R-Mineral, said the vape tax could cause consumers in border counties to buy vape and e-cigarette products in other states.
“I live in a border community, so when we change taxes, it sometimes affects our businesses differently than it affects the ones on the other side of the river,” he said. “We have to look at how does it affect everything else that we do.”
The $5.493 billion revenue estimate for Morrisey’s introduced budget bill for fiscal year 2027, beginning July 1, accounted for the $125 million reduction in personal income tax collections due to a 5% cut in personal income tax rates. Morrisey signed the Senate and House’s compromise budget bill – Senate Bill 250 – Thursday night, setting the general revenue budget at $5.485 billion.
House Finance Committee Chairman Vernon Criss, R-Wood, voted for SB 392 after previously questioning the governor’s assumptions that the state’s budget could handle a 5% personal income tax cut. He said Morrisey should have put his faith in the personal income tax reduction trigger established by the Legislature in 2023.
“In our current formula … as our economy grew and as we looked at the sources of revenue excluding severance tax – because we knew that it’s pretty vulnerable – that as we exceeded inflation for that year in our revenue collections in those items that we had determined in the formula, if they exceeded the formula in their over and above inflation, that we would have been able to (calculate) a tax rate reduction the following August after the end of the fiscal year,” Criss explained.
“I still believe that’s what we still need to do and the tax cut this time seems to be ahead of us in our economy,” Criss continued. “I’m hoping that we do not have a quote-unquote hiccup in our revenues for the coming year, that we’ll still be able to absorb this in our revenues, and we’ll just have to wait and see as we go along.”
House Minority Leader Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, said he also supported the original income tax cut trigger formula and would not support SB 392.
“To go against our word, telling people to just trust us, is irresponsible and negligent,” he said. “I just want to make sure that we’re clear on the timing of this bill. All 100 of us want to reduce taxes, but it’s being fiscally responsible at the appropriate time. And I’m not so sure right now West Virginia can afford that.”
In the Senate, members amended and passed House Bill 4765, providing an average 3% pay raise for teachers, school service personnel, and employees of the West Virginia State Police. The bill passed in a 34-0 unanimous vote, heading back to the House for concurrence.
Morrisey first proposed an average 3% pay raise for state employees during his State of the State address back on Jan. 14. While FY27 pay raises for state workers paid via the general revenue budget are included in SB 250, raises for teachers, school staff and State Police employees have to be done in a separate bill due to their pay rates being set in state code.
The Senate adopted an amendment to HB 4765 Friday afternoon from the Senate Finance Committee to include a market pay enhancement, a supplemental salary adjustment designed for teachers, school workers, and State Police employees in counties with higher median incomes and costs of living.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jason Barrett, R-Berkeley, explained that the committee strike-and-insert amendment is designed to provide monetary incentives for those three categories of state employees to remain in West Virginia rather than seeking employment in higher-paying neighboring regions, such as Maryland and Virginia.
The state Board of Education and the superintendent of the State Police would be required to use U.S. Census data to determine median income figures for each county. These calculations would produce two multipliers; the higher of the two would be used to determine the enhancement amount.
The first calculation would be scheduled for December, with the first pay enhancements taking effect on July 1, 2027, with calculations recurring annually. Market pay enhancements would be limited to a maximum of 20% of the average basic salary for the respective position.
An amendment to the amendment added that any county whose calculation resulted in a 0% enhancement based on Census data would still receive a minimum 1% market pay enhancement. To prevent pay cliffs between neighboring counties, an enhancement in any county would be limited to no more than 5% above the enhancement of a contiguous county within the state.
Senate Minority Leader Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, opposed the bill as amended, worrying that it would create disparities among counties and cause teachers, school staff and State Police employees to leave some counties.
“This sets a dangerous precedent for counties around the state. Some are more equal than others,” he said.
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