West Virginia’s Strained Agency Budgets Will Hamper Flood Response and Recovery
Bridgeport, W.Va., firefighters, Steve Gallo, left, and Ryan Moran, center, are joined by an unidentified co-worker as they walk through a flooded street while searching homes in Rainelle, W. Va., Saturday, June 25, 2016. Steve Helber / AP Photo
While the state averted a government shutdown last month, it isn't escaping the impacts of the recent flash flooding.
Like many natural disasters, the catastrophic flooding that hit West Virginia last month has been a multi-layered crisis and one that continues to unfold two weeks after swollen rivers and creeks killed more than 20 people in the state.
As the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported this weekend, budget cuts in recent years means that many West Virginia state agencies are hamstrung in what they can do to help people recover and what they will be able to do “lessen the severity of future disasters” when they inevitably strike:
Within the last four years, most state agencies have endured two years of 7.5 percent cuts, a third year of 4 percent cuts, as well as the draining of many one-time surplus accounts and the diminishing of the state’s Rainy Day Fund.
In the aftermath of the flooding, more withdrawals from the Rainy Day Fund are likely,this time to help rebuild following a quite literal very rainy day.
According to state-by-state data compiled by The Pew Charitable Trusts, in fiscal 2015, West Virginia had reserve funding of around $1.3 billion, which would allow the state to operate for about 111 days on those funds alone—that’s higher than all but five other states.
The $4.1 billion fiscal 2017 budget, signed by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin in mid June, included one-time withdrawals from the state’s rainy day fund of around $70 million. State lawmakers had to close a $270 million budget gap, which also included increasing cigarette taxes to raise $98 million in revenue.
The relatively robust rainy day fund won’t make up for stagnant and strained agency budgets. According to the Gazette-Mail:
- In the new fiscal year, which began July 1, the State Police will be dealing with $2 million in reduced funding, “completing a funding cut of nearly 11 percent since fiscal year 2014.”
- The West Virginia National Guard’s budget has stayed the same since 2013, meaning that when inflation is factored in, it has seen a 5 percent funding drop.
- The Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management has had a stagnant budget over the previous five fiscal years.
- And the budget for the state’s Early Warning Flood System has decreased more than 11 percent since 2013.
Twelve counties in West Virginia are currently included in the federal disaster declaration made following the flooding, which destroyed 1,500 homes and damaged 4,000 more. State and federal roads have sustained at least $36 million in damage, a price tag that was more than double than previous estimates, according to West Virginia MetroNews.
Last week, the Tribune-Review painted a particularly grim picture of the flooding’s impacts in the town of Clendenin, located along the Elk River:
[Fire Chief Kevin Clendenin] chief estimates the flood damaged about 500 homes and buildings in the town of about 1,200 people. About 200 structures are irreparably damaged or destroyed.
He hopes the Dairy Queen, which collapsed in the flood, will be rebuilt. It has been part of the town since the 1950s.
“Every kid that played a baseball game in the town of Clendenin went to Dairy Queen after the game,” the fire chief said.
But Clendenin wonders whether the town's Little League of a couple hundred kids will survive. Its field, locker room and facilities were destroyed. The kids might not come back if their families rebuild elsewhere, the chief said.
Clendenin's K-5 grade school of about 500 is bracing to lose about half its enrollment this fall, he said.
“I think it will be a long time,” Clendenin said of the town's recovery. “We're just kind of propping people up right now.”
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty and is based in Seattle.
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