June 22, 2007

When it comes to children in West Virginia, the Legislature tends to focus on three issues: education, safety, and health. Right now, the state is participating in a program that touches on all three issues, and hopefully will be expanding in the future.

The state Department of Transportation facilitates our involvement in a nationwide program, Safe Routes to School, intended to improve the ability of children to walk and bicycle to school safely.

Many of us might remember when it was commonplace for children to walk or bicycle to school. According to Safe Routes to School, in 1969, about half of all 5- to 18-year-olds either walked or biked to school. Now, nearly 82 percent of all West Virginia students (225,759) head to school in either a bus or a car.

As a result, there’s a lot more traffic, reduced air quality, and kids are not getting as much exercise.

This year, Gov. Manchin and representatives from the state Division of Highways and the Federal Highway Administration’s West Virginia Division Office announced $1 million in Safe Routes to School program grants to 11 projects across West Virginia.

The idea is to promote walking and bicycling through a variety of methods, most importantly improving the infrastructure around schools to reduce speeds and potential conflicts with cars and establish safer and more accessible crossing, walkways, trails and bikeways.

* There have been some other interesting announcement regarding our state. Speaking of safety, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, the largest insurer of autos in West Virginia, is lowering its overall auto insurance rate level here an average of 2.5 percent, effective July 2. That’s going to be a total savings of $16.5 million, according to State Farm.

"After this rate change is implemented, State Farm’s overall rate level in West Virginia will be 13.4 percent lower than it was in 2005 when a series of legal and insurance reforms were approved by the West Virginia Legislature and signed into law by Governor Joe Manchin," the company stated in a press release.

State Farm also announced a $2.8 million dividend in West Virginia that will provide auto policyholders 2 percent of their semi-annual premium.

* Staring earlier this month, new West Virginia residents will no longer be subject to the 5 percent privilege tax on automobiles. Up to this point, new residents were charged the tax not only on autos purchased here, but on those that they purchased in other states and brought with them to West Virginia.

Gov. Manchin noted that not only was the tax punitive to new residents, but it caused some border-county residents to illegally register their cars out of state or fail to renew their registrations to avoid the 5 percent fee.

Now, new residents who have not titled and registered their vehicles in West Virginia are being granted a three-month amnesty, ending Sept. 7, 2007.

Meanwhile, in 2008, according to the law the Legislature adopted, the entire privilege tax will be converted to a sales tax.

* Lawmakers and state officials have been talking about it for a long time, and finally West Virginia moved forward with the sale of more than $800 million in tobacco settlement bonds. It has been a complex issue to discuss and consider, but this year the Legislature and Gov. Manchin agreed it was time to sell the settlement payments from West Virginia’s part of a 1998 settlement with four major tobacco companies.

While the state is giving up its right to the payments, which are to be paid to 46 states over the next two decades, the future of those payments are uncertain. This way, we have secured the money, and are able to pay down the state’s debt and help secure our public pension funds.