Senate President Craig Blair reads the vote total for SB 550, creating a performance-based funding formula for public higher education institutions. (Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography)
CHARLESTON — The West Virginia Senate voted Thursday on multiple bills on Day 30 of the 60-day legislative session dealing with taxpayer funding of higher education, protections for workers fired while seeking exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines, and a bill aimed at helping students with eating disorders.
The Senate passed Senate Bill 550, relating to funding for higher education institutions, in a 28-6 vote Thursday afternoon.
SB 550 would allow the state Higher Education Policy Commission and the Community and Technical College System of West Virginia to develop a performance-based funding formula to determine how funding from the state’s general revenue fund is distributed to the state’s 10 four-year colleges and universities, and the nine two-year community and technical colleges.
The HEPC/WVCTCS has been working on a new funding model with stakeholders for the last two years, with discussions accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic. All institutions of higher learning took a financial hit due to decreasing enrollment and other reduced streams of income.
The model being developed, based on a similar model in Tennessee, would base public funding to colleges/universities and community and technical colleges on several metrics, including credit hours, the number of degrees or...
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