Once again, West Virginia squandered millions of taxpayer dollars on jobs that never came

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Once again, West Virginia squandered millions of taxpayer dollars on jobs that never came

Here’s how more than $8 million, earmarked for creating local jobs, went out-of-state.

by Lucas Manfield
February 1st, 2021

In 2019, then-West Virginia Treasurer John Perdue had a problem.

Throughout the 2000s, West Virginia spent nearly $25 million on a controversial program that funneled state money to risky investments. They didn’t pan out, and Perdue wanted to tally up the losses and end the program for good.

But when state employees showed up at the agency tasked with overseeing the program, they were told that years of records weren’t available — and might have been destroyed.

Concerned, Perdue tipped off state auditors, who released a scathing report earlier this week that criticized both the underlying design of the program and the dizzying lack of state oversight that allowed more than $20 million in state funds to evaporate, at least $8 million of it out-of-state.

The seeds of this debacle are ancient history — the millions were given away over a decade ago. But the implications are not.

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[underpants]

1. 👀

Reading later thanks

[dutch777]

2. It seems we have a hard time understanding that some states or at least parts of states...

...are almost beyond help. And some seem to even mess up the help when they get it. WV is certainly one and the rural (non coastal) parts of LA, MS and many other places are others. The old coal mining areas of central PA are similar. The industries they once relied on for gainful employment are gone or almost so. The basic education level is frequently way below the national average. And focused training programs either don't exist or the skills they teach don't have a ready market in the local economy, so they encourage the young and the capable to move-- a brain drain, energy and tax base loss. While some places that had their original core industries gutted, such as steel and Pittsburgh, and made a comeback, they took 40+ years and are still the exception.

It is a challenge for the country and for the Dems as these places are not contributing significantly to GDP, they voted Trump typically by 70% margin or more and are higher users of government support programs and low supporters of the tax base for both the states and the Fed government. I have yet to see anything other than lip service to this issue and am very curious if de facto we will just be leaving wide swaths of this country to slip back to almost subsistence existence.

[CrispyQ]

3. Love of money... -nt