Students in West Virginia schools are facing heightened security risks as a state funding shortfall prevents the implementation of basic safety measures.
Security measures such as controlled entry points — the first line of defense against a school shooting — remain unfunded even as a recent increase in school threats put students, teachers, and staff at greater risk.
Gov. Jim Justice established a school safety task force, but it’s no match for the sweeping tax cuts he signed into law in recent years.
This is the most recent example of how Justice’s tax breaks for wealthy households and corporations in the past two years are pushing West Virginia further into financial crisis.
In the 2023 cuts’ first year of implementation, the state suffered its largest year-over-year revenue decline in 25 years — outpacing the historic decline in the Great Recession — and losses could accelerate due to tax cut “triggers” adopted as part of the plan. Combined with additional tax cuts adopted this year, lost revenues from tax cuts are projected to swell to about $958 million by fiscal year 2026.
Amid growing revenue losses, policymakers are being forced to cut funding for public safety, education, foster care, and other essential services. So far:
- Public schools are facing a historic wave of consolidations and closures, disrupting families and local communities statewide, due to a combination of tax cuts, expensive private school vouchers, and a failure to update the state’s school funding formula.
- Dozens of child care centers and family care homes have closed, causing hundreds of families to lose access.
- This spring the state narrowly avoided a $147 million cut to Medicaid after a special legislative session, but a funding cliff set for March 2025 will jeopardize health care once again without further appropriations.
- Recent tax cuts and years of underfunding have led to building maintenance backlogs, unfilled correctional officer positions in jails and prisons, layoffs at West Virginia University, and the lowest teacher pay of any state.
- Funding constraints are delaying rural health facility support, public transportation projects, and infrastructure repairs.
The 2023 tax cuts have also deepened economic inequality across the state, with nearly two-thirds of the benefits going to the top 20 percent of earners. While the wealthiest 1 percent of West Virginians receive an average tax cut of $10,000 per year, residents with incomes in the bottom 20 percent receive only about $21, leaving working families to shoulder the burden of declining public services.
As revenues fall and state lawmakers insist on yet more tax cuts, West Virginia risks further depleting the resources it needs to pay for school security, child care, health services, and infrastructure. Without a course correction, the state will increasingly struggle to provide essential services, jeopardizing families, communities, and children’s current and future well-being.
