Stating the State of the State

When the media reported on Gov. Joe Manchin's Jan. 10 State of the State address, we focused almost entirely on his legislative and policy proposals for the coming year. With limited space and time, it made sense to highlight what the governor was asking of lawmakers and taxpayers.

But as its title suggests, the address is also supposed to detail the state's recent track record and current health, fiscal and otherwise (and as The Charleston Gazette's Phil Kabler recently noted, the State of the State was not always a speech. It instead began as a document delivered to the Legislature to start the session. This duty is spelled out in the West Virginia Constitution).

Manchin made several representations about the status of West Virginia. Chief among them: "In the last two years, employment in West Virginia has risen by more than 18,000 jobs with approximately $3.5 billion worth of new business investments being made in our state."

The first claim is easy to check, and a review shows Manchin somewhat lowballed it. West Virginia had 753,600 private-sector jobs in December 2004, the month before Manchin took office. The number of jobs grew by 24,200 as of December 2006, the last month for seasonally adjusted figures from WorkForce West Virginia.

I would also note that unemployment grew by one-tenth of 1 percent during that time, to 5.1 percent, with 1,900 more people receiving jobless benefits.

The second claim is tougher to track, and I'll need to do some more research. I can say that corporate net income and business franchise tax collections _ perhaps an indicator of commercial activity _ nearly doubled between fiscal years 2004 and 2006.

West Virginia University's Bureau of Business and Economic Research constantly measures this area, and its more recent findings offer a mixed bag. For instance, the state saw jobs grow by 1.3 percent in 2005, its best showing since 2000. The national job growth rate during that time was 1.5 percent, however.

As for the health of state government, Manchin listed several achievements for 2006. They included an overall reduction in public employees and nearly $1 billion devoted to pension shortfalls. The latter claim is true, and Manchin extended credit to a "very responsible Legislature" that had made tackling pension debts a priority.

I'm not sure about the decline in state workers. Manchin issued a press release in August boasting 444 fewer positions, a drop of 1.5 percent, that did not count the privatization of the workers' compensation program. Again, additional research is required.