CHARLESTON — On Wednesday, Gov. Jim Justice presented the 2019 State of the State address, calling for tax cuts, pay raises for state employees, and “Jim’s Dream” to combat West Virginia drug epidemic.
“Today, we have things that are so good: surpluses, no new taxes,” Justice expressed. “Did you hear that, no new taxes. In fact, we are going to embark on significant tax cuts.”
“We have the largest revenue that we’ve ever had before in the first 6 months of collection. It is really an accomplishment.”
Justice also discussed the future of PEIA and his plan to increase the salaries of all state employees by 5 percent.
“Tonight, I would say that we need to make education our centerpiece. I really am a believer that education is the hotspot that really can change our industries,” Justice continued. “We have made education our centerpiece.”
“I have stated that within my budget, I have included a 5 percent pay raise for all state employees.”
“In regard to PEIA, I promised that we would put $50 million into PEIA, in one year. The next year, $100 million, total. That was the beginning. Then we decided that we’ve got enough surplus dollars, we could put $100 million into PEIA right now.”
“The other thing is just this, $100 million into PEIA is not going to solve PEIA forevermore, but today PEIA does not need any true up monies. Putting $100 million into PEIA is a giant first step.”
Additionally, the Governor also called for the legislature to pass a bill that would allow teachers to collect and transfer their leave days.
“I want you to allow our teachers to be able to bank their leave days. We got away from doing that, but I absolutely believe it would be beneficial to us. It would surely help in our absenteeism. It would be beneficial to our teachers.”
The main part of Justice’s speech focused on a plan called “Jim’s Dream.” The governor described his plan to combat the drug epidemic by funding treatment centers. These centers would allow addicts to receive treatment for free. Additionally, Justice wants ‘former’ addicts to have access to proper job training, while they subject themselves to regular drug tests.
“I’m going to call this Jim’s Dream, because I want it to be just that. I want it to be a dream that we can take our people off this terrible drug trail and we can put them in a job and we can give them real life hope,” he said.
Jim’s Dream stands for “Jobs In Making You Succeed.”
“The J stands for Jobs. The I is going to be, ‘In.’ The M is going to be ‘Making.’ The little apostrophe is upside down, and we twisted it around to make it a ‘U.’ Succeed,” Justice expressed.
Justice then began to discuss the expenses that would be included within his program.
“I’m going to tell you that it is going to take some money to do this. Not all the money in the world. But let me just tell you. There’s going to be so many opinions of how we ought to do this.”
“What I’m going to ask you for is $5 million dollars to be put into prevention. I’m going to ask you for $10 million dollars to put into DHHR and treatment. I’m going to ask you for $10 million dollars for staffing and replacement and maintenance of equipment at the training centers, at the voc-tech centers. And then I’m going to ask you, that if I’m an addict, and I go to treatment, and I get better, and then I go into some level of training, and I get a certificate that I will be able to take that to a court and get immediate expungement of a misdemeanor that I have.”
“Through the surpluses that we have today, I want to take $20 million dollars out of those surpluses, through an appropriation, $20 million dollars (out of those surpluses) and buy all the necessary equipment that I’m gonna have to have at all of these centers to be able to do the level of training that I think needs to be done.”
“These people can’t get jobs. Let’s just tell it like it is,” Justice continued. “Through the surpluses that we have today, I want to take $20 million dollars out of those surpluses, through an appropriation, to do the level of training that I think needs to be done.”
Jim’s Dream is expected to be the Governor’s signature policy proposal for 2019.