Mar. 15—By GREG JORDAN

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

CHARLESTON — Gov. Jim Justice said Thursday that he plans to call for a legislative special session to address budget issues such as childcare for families and property taxes for senior citizens.

The 2024 session of the West Virginia Legislature began Jan. 10 and adjourned at midnight on March 9. Justice said he wanted the legislature to come back into session, and later stated they could be called back in April.

“I guess the biggest thing and hottest thing we’ve done is the budget, what we did and how we did it,” Justice said during an online administrative briefing. “I’ll sign the budget because we need a budget…but I absolutely will call the Legislature back into special session and I will call it very soon.”

Justice said he wanted to discuss various tax breaks for West Virginia’s citizens during a special legislative session. West Virginia has had “an unprecedented economic run” and can afford such tax breaks, according to the Republican governor.

“We need to get daycare for our young families and everything,” he said. “We really need to get into a vigorous debate and we need some way, some how to help these people. It was a tax break.”

Another tax break would be designed to help older West Virginians, Justice said.

“As far as our low-income seniors, Homestead Exemption from the standpoint of helping out with our property tax, we needed to do that,” Justice said. “We can do that. For crying out loud, it’s absolutely stuff we should be doing. And when I call them back, they’ll absolutely be on the ball and we’ll see if we can get across the finish line.”

“We’ve got a lot of great legislators in this state,” Justice said.

— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com

Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com