Budget Surplus Expected for State’s Fiscal Year

The West Virginia House Finance Committee Chairman said the state government is set to end the fiscal year with a healthy surplus. The budget year ends Saturday, June 30 and the state is about $1.2 million ahead of its full-year revenue estimates for the 2018 fiscal year. The finance committee said in a news release that when they started the budget process in February 2017, they were facing a nearly $500 million deficit, but the gap was closed with spending cuts and saying no to new spending requests. WCHS TV reports half of any surplus funds left over at the end of the fiscal year will be deposited into the state’s Rainy Day fund. The remaining surplus funds will go to programs lawmakers identified in the 2019 fiscal year budget bill.