85th Legislature
By David Kelly,
WV House of Delegates,
District 8
The Legislature continues to put forth legislation designed to create jobs in the Mountain State by offering targeted tax credits to for specific industries.
On February 25th, a bill designed to strengthen state regulations on broadband connectivity was advanced to the full house. House Bill 4001 creates a means for mapping rights of way and potential obstructions, as well as rights of way for utility poles. It will strengthen protections provided to customers.
“This would provide the State of West Virginia the opportunity to hold those providers accountable,” said Delegate Daniel Linville, R-Cabell, and lead sponsor of House Bill 4001. “While we trust, we would hope to verify. If folks know someone will be watching, I hope that they would carry out the intent of the Legislature and the intent of Congress correctly.”
House Bill 4025, is designed to provide for a severance tax exemption for a period of up to five years for the following reasons:
1. Extraction
2. Production
3. And sale of rare earth elements and other critical materials
This is an economic development incentive, and the bill passed the full house 94-four.
In an overwhelming bipartisan vote, we brought back the state’s film tax credit. HB2096 brings back the film investment tax credit. The tax credit was first implemented by the legislature in 2007 but was repealed in 2018 due to a recommendation following a legislative auditor’s report. The bill now goes to the Senate.
“For too many years now, West Virginia has been the only state in our region without this film credit,” Graves said. “That effectively meant Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and every other content producer out there had reasons to go to any state other than West Virginia to film their projects.”
HB 4344 passed the House this week. This bill increases the salaries for our Child Protective Workers, (CPS) by 15 percent. The bill also requires DHHR to work with child placement services in an effort to ensure that kinship families have an opportunity to participate in the state’s foster care program.
Additionally, the bill sets forth requirements for the West Virginia Bureau for Children and Families to complete a thorough study of centralized intake by January 2023, as well as, developing a dashboard to be included in the Bureau’s existing data system.
Lead sponsor, Matthew Rohrbach, R-Cabell, chairman of the House Health and Human Resources Committee said, “This is another very good product to move the ball forward. So, we will keep working, because this is probably as important as anything this Legislature deals with our children.”
The regular legislative session ends at midnight March 12. To date, we have completed a total of 32 pieces of had legislation.