Public Comments

• Clinically relevant dose-response studies are discouraged or rendered nonviable;
• Research protocols cannot reflect real-world medical use;
• Institutional review boards and universities are deterred from participation due to compliance and liability concerns.

• the Medical Cannabis Program has reached functional maturity;
• regulatory obstacles have been resolved;
• patient access, provider participation, and research infrastructure are operational at scale.

• Continuous service
• Local institutional knowledge
• Department-specific experience

• Article III, §10 of the West Virginia Constitution (Equal Protection and Due Process)
• Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Equal Protection Clause)

• W. Va. Code §7-1-1 (County commissions as governing bodies)
• W. Va. Code §7-7-7 (County compensation authority)

• Higher salary placement
• Increased overtime eligibility
• Accelerated retirement qualification

• Artificial inflation of service credit
• Accelerated vesting
• Increased unfunded pension liabilities

• Disciplinary records
• Performance evaluations
• Internal investigations

• Public safety outcomes
• Emergency response capacity
• Community policing effectiveness

• Article III, §10 of the West Virginia Constitution
• Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

This is America. This is WV. It's not the job of the government to limit our exchange of precious metals.

• Personal property taxation by counties (WV Code §11-6-1 et seq.);
• Annual vehicle registration fees (WV Code §17A-3-2);
• Mandatory insurance requirements (WV Code §17D-2A-3);
• State inspection/NVI requirements (WV Code §17C-16-1);
• Sales and use taxes at purchase (WV Code §11-15-3).

• a flat rate of $0.205 per gallon, plus
• a variable component tied to wholesale price (with minimums/limits).  

• maintain roads/bridges,
• plow and treat roads during winter,
• repair slides/flood damage,
• keep equipment running,
• and meet debt and matching obligations.

• reduce road maintenance operations,
• limit equipment purchase/maintenance,
• reduce contracted work (hurting WV’s economy),
• create harsh-winter funding tradeoffs (snow/ice operations consuming resources and leaving insufficient repair funds later),
• threaten debt service,
• and threaten the ability to fully match the federal highway program.  

• general revenue (competing with schools, public health, and other needs),
• higher registration/DMV fees, or
• local taxes/bonds (hardest on rural counties).

1. a verified fiscal note for this specific repeal, and
2. a replacement revenue plan that maintains State Road Fund stability and preserves federal match capacity—without regressive cost-shifting to counties and working families.

• A fiscal impact analysis showing long-term healthcare savings
• Evidence that gym membership deductions reduce state healthcare costs
• Safeguards to prevent revenue loss during an already constrained state budget

• Broad, income-neutral health credits
• Investments in community recreation infrastructure
• Expanded access to preventive healthcare and rural wellness programs

I am writing not as a political voice, but as a parent who is deeply concerned about what House Bill 4961 would mean for my family and my children.

I grew up without financial stability. I worked hard, put myself through school, and built a professional career so my children could have more opportunity than I did. My husband and I both work. We are not wealthy. We carry a mortgage, tuition payments, and the same rising costs every West Virginia family is facing. The Hope Scholarship is not a luxury for us — it is what makes our children’s school possible.

An income cap of $150,000 may sound high on paper, but in real life it does not make a family financially comfortable. It creates a harsh line where families just over the limit lose all support, even though their day-to-day reality looks nearly identical to those just under it. We would not suddenly have extra money for tuition. We would simply lose the support that makes this education possible.

What hurts most is the message this sends. Parents like me worked hard to climb out of poverty and build stability, only to be told that doing better means losing access to opportunity for our children. That feels less like fairness and more like a penalty for upward mobility.

Our children are thriving in their school. They feel safe, supported, and excited to learn. Losing the Hope Scholarship would not mean we suddenly have the means to cover tuition — it would mean stress, uncertainty, and potentially removing them from the environment where they are flourishing.

This bill does not just change numbers on a page. It affects real children, real families, and real futures. Please do not turn the Hope Scholarship into a program that pushes working middle-income families out of educational choice. I respectfully ask you to oppose HB 4961 or reconsider the hard income cap.

I agree with this bill for a lot of reasons. Teachers go through several trainings a year and years of schooling so they can teach and help shape small minds. State police go through years of training, exercises, tests, and go through psychological stress everyday to protect the state. They both do so much for the state. However, they do not get paid enough for the work they really do. Their pay needs to be increased to properly reflect their work.

Encouraging larger families aligns with West Virginia's commitment to promoting the institution of the family and ensuring a nurturing environment for children. Providing tax relief to families with four or more children reflects the state's recognition of the vital contributions these families make to the community.

House Bill 4009 does not offer a viable solution to the problems it identifies. While the bill acknowledges that gig and contract workers face instability around healthcare, retirement, and other benefits, the proposed Portable Benefit Account model does not meaningfully alleviate those burdens.

Under this bill, participation and contributions are entirely voluntary, with no requirement that hiring parties contribute to worker benefits in any meaningful or proportional way. As a result, workers remain responsible for funding their own healthcare, retirement, and income protection, leaving the underlying precarity of contract work unchanged.

More concerning, the bill explicitly provides that contributions to a portable benefit account may not be used as evidence in determining a worker’s employment classification. This provision protects hiring parties from misclassification challenges and weakens existing labor protections, effectively insulating corporations from responsibility while offering workers little more than a new financial account.

Portable benefits can be part of a serious labor reform only when they include enforceable employer obligations and preserve workers’ rights to proper classification. House Bill 4009 does neither. For these reasons, I urge the House to vote no on this bill as written unless it is substantially revised to prioritize worker protections and corporate accountability.

I support West Virginia HB 4009 because it modernizes our workforce by allowing portable benefits that follow workers across jobs. This bill supports independent contractors and gig workers by expanding access to health, retirement, and financial security benefits without disrupting flexible work models or obligating an employer to costly, regulated benefit structures. HB 4009 helps West Virginia stay competitive while respecting worker choice.

• Clear, measurable job creation benchmarks tied to real wages;
• Sunset provisions so credits expire if goals aren’t met;
• Strong accountability and clawback provisions so companies must repay credit if performance promises aren’t delivered - including enforcement
• Transparency requirements to ensure public reporting on outcomes.

• Preserve strong local zoning and land-use authority
• Require full, independent infrastructure and environmental impact studies
• Protect utility ratepayers and public water resources
• Ensure transparency and meaningful public participation

I agree because it causes a unnecessary financial burden to people that own dogs especially elderly dogs. Also dogs being took away because someone cant pay is hard. With this bill it could remove the upsetting feelings and potential loss of their pet.

• A municipality may create a stabilization fund by majority vote of the governing body.
• The fund may receive appropriations, gifts, grants, and any other funds made available, including non-state funds.
• The statute does not require public justification, itemized reporting, or independent audit triggers tied to fund size or use. (See W. Va. Code § 8-13A-3.)

• W. Va. Code § 6-9A-1 et seq. (Open Governmental Proceedings Act) to require enhanced disclosure of stabilization fund decisions;
• W. Va. Code § 12-1-1 et seq. to impose fiscal reporting thresholds;
• Any provision requiring public accounting of grant or federal funds once deposited into a stabilization fund.

• HB 4833 removes a fiscal cap;
• Adds no new accountability standards;
• Operates within a system where ethics oversight does not cover incompetence or mismanagement absent a defined ethics violation.

• Annual public reporting of stabilization fund balances and sources;
• Disclosure of grant or federal funds deposited;
• A documented public finding of necessity for balances exceeding a defined percentage of the general fund.

1. fully transparent, audited, and legally compliant spending across public safety programs;
2. fully funded flood prevention/recovery resources and critical infrastructure; and
3. broad taxpayer relief and essential services — before expanding retirement incentives through HB 4803.

Good morning,

I oppose House Bill 4013 as written.

West Virginia does need economic development. What we do not need are open-ended tax incentives that primarily benefit capital-intensive projects with minimal long-term benefit to working families and local communities.

This bill creates a broad, discretionary tax credit that heavily rewards equipment purchases and construction costs, not sustained job creation. That matters, because projects like data centers—explicitly included in this bill—are well known to generate very few permanent jobs relative to the size of the public subsidy they receive. Independent economic studies consistently show that data centers often employ dozens, not hundreds, of full-time workers once construction ends, despite consuming massive amounts of electricity and infrastructure capacity.

HB 4013 allows tax credits to be calculated largely on non-manufacturing equipment and construction spending, even when permanent job creation is minimal. That is a poor return on investment for taxpayers.

The bill also allows these credits to offset multiple state taxes, including—remarkably—up to 20 percent of employee withholding taxes. That means the state can end up subsidizing a company using money that would otherwise support schools, roads, emergency services, and healthcare. That is not economic development; it is cost-shifting.

Transparency is another major concern. Information shared between the Tax Department, Workforce West Virginia, and the administering authority is explicitly exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. If taxpayer dollars are being used to subsidize private corporations, the public has a right to see the terms, the performance, and the outcomes. Sunlight is not optional when public money is involved.

The bill places “sole and exclusive jurisdiction” in the hands of the Department of Commerce to decide who qualifies, how much they receive, and whether clawbacks are enforced. That level of discretion, combined with limited public oversight, is exactly how incentive programs drift from economic policy into political favoritism.

Finally, this bill includes no enforceable community benefit requirements. There are no guarantees for:

• local hiring or apprenticeships,

• labor standards or neutrality,

• protections against layoffs after credits are used,

• limits on noise, infrastructure strain, or quality-of-life impacts,

• or binding assurances that utility upgrade costs will not be passed on to ratepayers.

West Virginians have seen this movie before. We are promised jobs and prosperity, and what we get instead are tax breaks, higher infrastructure costs, and communities left with the consequences.

I support real economic development—projects that create good-paying jobs, respect workers, strengthen local communities, and deliver a measurable public return on public investment. HB 4013 does not meet that standard.

If the Legislature wants to attract investment, it should do so on West Virginia’s terms: with transparency, strict job-creation requirements, automatic clawbacks, and clear protections for taxpayers and communities.

Until those standards are written into law, this bill should not advance.