Status of 2024 earmarks uncertain
Mar. 22—MORGANTOWN — The continuing resolution signed into law this past week averted a government shutdown, but may have closed the door on a number of projects across West Virginia.
As previously reported, the temporary spending plan did not include any fiscal year 2025 congressionally directed spending, or earmarks, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars across the Mountain State.
Now, local officials are questioning the status of yet-to-be-received funds awarded as congressionally directed spending from FY 2024.
The Dominion Post reached out to WVU after the university made an emergency request to the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization to amend its Transportation Improvement Plan to reflect a change in funding for upcoming improvements to the university's Personal Rapid Transit system.
The university had been awarded $6.4 million in congressionally directed spending in the FY 2024 appropriations cycle for the work.
The funds were to be used as part of a multi-year overhaul of the transit system, including aesthetic and infrastructural updates to stations, platforms, staircases, elevators and guideway components.
"Currently, a lot of those grants are frozen, including this PRT grant, " MPO Executive Director Bill Austin said. "WVU would like to continue with that work. That's about $3 million worth of work they were hoping to get done this summer. So, working with the [Federal Transportation Administration ] they figured a way to shift some funds around from the next fiscal year so they could accommodate that work."
But that was just one of many FY 2024 earmarks anticipated by WVU, the city of Morgantown and other local agencies that have yet to materialize.
WVU Executive Director of Communications April Kaull said the university is working with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito's office "to better understand the potential impacts and are hopeful that funding will be available for important university and related projects and initiatives."
Morgantown City Councilor Danielle Trumble was part of the Morgantown delegation that traveled to Washington D.C. earlier this month for the National League of Cities Congressional City Conference.
Trumble, who met with Capito while in D.C., said she was surprised to learn the 2025 congressionally directed spending was being eliminated.
When asked about the 2024 funding, Trumble said she left the conference concerned about any federal funding that's been announced but not received.
"I think that it's not automatically gone like fiscal year 25, but other grants that the city has been awarded seem to be frozen, and I think we should be moving forward with the assumption that they are not guaranteed any longer, " she said. "The fiscal year 25 congressionally directed spending is certainly gone now, but I'm concerned about any other money that we don't already have in hand. I think the freeze is affecting a lot more than fiscal year 2025, and even more than just earmarks."
Capito's office previously told The Dominion Post the continuing resolution only eliminated the 2025 congressionally directed spending requests.
"Senator Capito understands the frustration, and she shares in that frustration, but remains committed to supporting initiatives that benefit West Virginia, " Capito Communications Director Kelley Moore said.
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