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Cuts would kill festivals

It probably will come as some surprise to people interested in the history and culture of black residents of our area that they are part of the problem in West Virginia. So are folks in Chester, Hundred, Moundsville, New Cumberland, Pine Grove, Sistersville, Tyler County in general, Weirton and Wellsburg who think celebrating Independence Day is a good thing to do.

Now, before you pick up the phone to give me a tongue-lashing, understand this is not my opinion. But it is how some people in Charleston, including some with influence on state government, feel.

As you may have noticed, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and legislators have not come to agreement on a state budget for the coming year. The $4 billion-plus general revenue budget appears to be around $240 million short of revenue. Lawmakers and the governor have been meeting to discuss how to close the gap (see editorial to the left).

One critic of the process wrote several days ago that legislators “have had no stomach to cut arguably the lowest-hanging fruit out of the budget – the $1.85 million doled out to support hundreds of fairs and festivals around the state.”

Among fairs and festivals in our area receiving state funding this year are the Ohio Valley Black Heritage Festival, at $4,538, and the Fourth of July events listed above. A total of 42 events in Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Ohio, Tyler and Wetzel counties receive state fairs and festivals funding. They share $287,886 for the current fiscal year.

Many of them bring business to the state in the form of visitors who stay in motels and hotels, eat in area restaurants and buy gasoline at service stations.

Some use proceeds for exceedingly worthy causes. Among those causes are providing deserving students with college scholarships and helping children overcome physical challenges. No doubt other events throughout the state do an enormous amount of good, too.

Yet the events and the organizations that stage them are “low-hanging fruit” that – again, not my opinion – some critics think ought to be picked out of the state budget.

The whole line item – money for every fair and festival receiving state funds – totals less than one-twentieth of one percent of the general fund budget.

So why do some people want to hurt – perhaps kill – the Wileyville Homecoming, the Moundsville Bass Festival, Follansbee Community Days, etc.?

Beats me. It’s not as if recreation and entertainment is a no-no. I haven’t heard critics of the fairs and festivals money complain about the $300,000 allocated for public broadcasting’s Mountain Stage program or the $138,254 budgeted for the Greenbrier Valley Theater. The $125,000 set aside for Theater Arts of West Virginia has not been described as low-hanging fruit. Neither has the Contemporary American Theater Festival’s $79,558.

Perhaps they’re politically correct. Apparently, fairs and festival line-item events such as the Paden City Labor Day Festival ($5,363) are not.

Could the very popularity of events funded by the fairs and festivals money be the problem? Are the budget cutters in Charleston so annoyed that they may have to actually reduce the size of government that some want to take it out on people who get a little fun out of celebrations such as Christmas in the Park in Brooke County and the Fort Henry Days re-enactment in Ohio County?

There indeed is some low-hanging fruit in the budget. One wonders, for example, whether we really need to budget $50,000 under a line item described as “Reduced Cigarette Ignition Propensity – Standard and Fire Prevention Act Fund.”

Leave the fairs and festivals money alone. Stop trying to insist the problem with state spending is a little enjoyment for just about everyone in West Virginia – paid for, really, by our money.

Oh, and remember this: Lots of people who go to those fairs and festivals vote.

– Mike Myer is the executive editor at the Wheeling Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register. Myer can be reached at mmyer@theintelligencer.net.

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