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As December sets in, West Virginia mineral rights owners can be assured of one certainty: receiving a notice in the mail of their new mineral rights valuation. And just as it's a certainty that notice will arrive, it's also clear that the valuation, as far as anyone can tell, continues to remain either inaccurate or wildly out of bounds.
That's what you have to appreciate about government -- make a major change riddled with mistakes and then put the burden on, in this case, the mineral rights owner to hopefully get it fixed. Or, as this issue also has taught us over the past two years, make a mistake, admit to that mistake, and then simply refuse to fix the problem.
This has been an ongoing issue for more than a year now. State tax department officials have admitted to deploying a mineral valuation system that didn't accurately appraise mineral rights for all owners. They also changed entirely the way that system would assess mineral values.
This all came about after the state Legislature in 2021 mandated a new method of valuing mineral rights through House Bill 2581. At the time that bill was passed, many senators, including outgoing Sen. Mike Maroney, R-Marshall, said valuations would actually lower. In the end, the opposite has happened.
So what does this mean? For one, some people will still be paying more in taxes this coming year than they should. That leaves you with less of your money to spend as you choose. This is nothing short of back-door tax increase to residents with mineral holdings. West Virginians don't appreciate that approach.
Also, the increased tax collections could mean local school systems and county governments will see their budgets increase based on faulty numbers. They will spend that money -- that's what government does -- and at some point in the future when this is hopefully fixed and you are paying less, these agencies will have a budget they can't afford, and elected leaders will be faced with the decision to cut the budget or increase the levy rate. It's a cycle of fiscal negligence that should have been fixed. And if state officials were unable or unwilling to figure out how, they should have reverted the values back to previous numbers to protect, not punish, mineral rights owners.
This is an issue that current Gov. Jim Justice has wholly ignored. Perhaps incoming Gov. Patrick Morrisey will work with lawmakers and his tax department to ensure mineral rights owners are not on the short side of faulty mineral rights valuations.