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Show the Math: There Is No TANF Crisis · Commentary - TJ Meadows

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  Speaker 1: The more one examines the supposed ten of crisis, the
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  Speaker 1: more it resembles ordinary financial management, reconciling projected revenue with
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  Speaker 1: actual expenses. Governor Morrisy says West Virginia faces a structural
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  Speaker 1: deficit in its tent of programs, but consider the math.
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  Speaker 1: The federal government provides approximately one hundred ten million annually
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  Speaker 1: after required transfers and administrative expenses. That's about ninety eight
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  Speaker 1: point eight million remaining. Add nearly twenty six million in
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  Speaker 1: required state maintenance of effort funding, and West Virginia has
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  Speaker 1: roughly one hundred twenty four point eight million dollars available
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  Speaker 1: to fund ten of programs. The Department of Human Services
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  Speaker 1: projects spending approximately one hundred do thirty seven million dollars
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  Speaker 1: this fiscal year. That produces a gap of just over
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  Speaker 1: twelve million dollars, But the state entered the year with
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  Speaker 1: approximately forty one million in previously unspent tan OF funds
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  Speaker 1: cover the projected gap, and roughly twenty nine million dollars remains.
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  Speaker 1: Along with the option of requesting a supplemental appropriation from
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  Speaker 1: the legislature. A crisis is something absent. Options options exist here, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: spending more annually than the program receives will eventually exhaust
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  Speaker 1: that reserve, but the administration says that point remains thirteen
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  Speaker 1: months away. That means there's time to review programs, account
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  Speaker 1: for inflation, establish priorities, and make adjustments through the normal
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  Speaker 1: budget process. The governor also says the state's path computer
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  Speaker 1: system makes it difficult to track spending in real time.
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  Speaker 1: Fair enough, but when private sector budgeting software fails, businesses
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  Speaker 1: develop a temporary workaround. State government should do the same.
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  Speaker 1: And then came Tuesday's warning that tanniff benefits might might
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  Speaker 1: be used to purchase beer and cigarettes. Should West Virginia
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  Speaker 1: examine tighter controls on EBT cash withdrawals? Certainly, but the
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  Speaker 1: administration offered no evidence that such purchases are occurring, and
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  Speaker 1: cash withdrawals did not create the claimed budget shortfall. Based
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  Speaker 1: on the evidence presented, this looks less like a genuine
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  Speaker 1: financial emergency and more like a political crisis manufactured through
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  Speaker 1: messaging and showmanship. More information may prove that assessment wrong.
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  Speaker 1: For now, however, the numbers do not support the crisis declaration.
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  Speaker 1: West Virginians can and should examine those numbers and decide
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  Speaker 1: for themselves.