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Gov. Patrick Morrisey said he was 100% committed to a better future in the mountains for every child in West Virginia during his annual State of the State speech.
Morrisey talked about his agenda for well-paying jobs, 3% pay raises for state employees, fixing foster care and more. He brought up the need to address drug addiction, flooding and the runaway cost of living.
Plus, he wants to fully fund the state’s school voucher program, which is projected to cost $245 million.
All this costs money.
But the governor wants to address all this while cutting the personal income tax by 10%. Morrisey vowed to take on inflation, saying he has met with West Virginians across the state who have struggled with power bills and grocery prices.
West Virginians have some of the fastest-rising power costs in the nation. Many are facing difficult decisions to pay their electric bills. The governor didn’t mention any direct help for them. Instead, he redoubled his support of coal and data centers, both of which are contributing to skyrocketing costs.
Morrisey celebrated the success of the state’s data center bill, which he said could be the key for major economic growth. But he didn’t address the issues surrounding loss of local control over data centers. Small communities in the state, where projects have seen public opposition, have asked for changes to the law. In the past, Morrisey has written off those concerns.
He recognized the need for infrastructure maintenance, celebrating $74 million in investments in water and sewer projects last year. But the state estimates that it needs between $16 and $20 billion to fix water and sewer service in its communities.
Like his predecessor, Morrisey said he wants to put $100 million into the state’s roads.
He touted the $546 million the state received to expand broadband and credited the Trump Administration, despite the money initially coming from the Biden Administration. The state was initially slated for $1.2 billion, part of which was to go for workforce development and cellphone service for remote areas. The other half is still pending Trump Administration approval.
Morrisey lauded the Trump Administration for the Rural Health Transformation Fund, a provision in a major spending package passed over the summer that cut Medicaid funds for the state. Critics have said the money lost in Medicaid will not be made up through the transformation fund.
Roughly one-third of West Virginians rely on Medicaid. Cuts to that program could kick thousands off their insurance and decimate rural hospitals. Morrisey said the funding from the Rural Health Transformation Fund, which he estimated at $1 billion over five years, could help with preventative medicine and steer West Virginians into healthier lifestyles. But the state gets $199 million this first year. Future money is contingent on the state’s ability to meet benchmarks each year after that.
He also said work requirements on SNAP benefits and Medicaid will help with West Virginia’s health outcomes; however, experts have said work requirements just result in people being kicked off of these key programs due to arduous paperwork.
While the applause for conservative policies came in regular waves, one area that met tepid reaction was the sale of state hospitals. The governor said the state should have never been in that business in the first place.
The state’s foster care system which has around 6,000 children in it is in shambles. Morrisey pitched the “Bring them Home Fund” to get foster children who are being held out of state back to West Virginia. He touted better training of child protective services workers and a reduction in backlogs, but there’s still many issues in the system.
A 2025 investigation by Mountain State Spotlight found the state has returned millions to the federal government in funding to assist foster children who aged out of the system to transition to adulthood. Child Protective Services case workers are still overworked and cannot keep tabs on the number of children in foster care.
Morrisey said keeping kids safe also means taking on the drug epidemic.
He noted that drug overdose rates have declined. But Morrisey did not mention that President Donald Trump’s spending package would gut addiction services needed to actually save lives.
Instead, he praised the president for his border security, calling for continuing the partnership between the state and federal government on immigration enforcement.
Last year, 12 West Virginians died in floods. Morrisey said he wants a better warning system that could give West Virginians one-to-six hours lead time to evacuate an area before it’s too late. He asked the Legislature for a $10 million pilot program to develop it.
For the most part, Morrisey kept the framing of his speech squarely in the realm of economic development. But he never mentioned child care, which the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce has said is key to getting people back to work.
Reach reporter Henry Culvyhouse at henry@mountainstatespotlight.org
