West Virginia‘s total bond debt increased by 158.41 percent since the creation of the Division of Debt Management, an agency that monitors the state’s ever expanding bond debt.

The Division of Debt Management was created in 1991 to monitor the state’s total debt position and develop a comprehensive long-term debt plan. The agency accomplishes the first part of that goal by releasing a semi-annual Debt Management Report, though originally that report was supposed to be created quarterly. The agency also only reports on the debt and doesn’t create comprehensive plans as required in the original 1991 legislation.

The report includes statistical information regarding the state’s debt, including information on general obligation bonds, lease obligations, certificates of participation, moral obligation bonds, and revenue bonds.

According to the first report, issued in 1991, the state’s debt amounted to nearly $3 billion. The most recent report, dated Dec. 31, 2009, shows the state with a bond debt of just over $7 billion; a 158.41 percent increase.

The bond debt, when included with the state’s nearly $5 billion pension liability, brings West Virginia’s total liabilities to approximately $12 billion. West Virginia Watchdog reported last week about the troubling numbers from the Pew Center on the States and the Institute for Truth in Accounting. Click here to read our story “Reports Detail W.Va. Pension Woes.”

According to a story Friday from the Associated Press, State Sen. Brooks McCabe had been optimistic that legislation that would address the state’s pension debt would be introduced yesterday, but a follow-up report said that due to conflicts between the State Senate and the House of Delegates the legislation wouldn’t make it this session, requiring a special session to be called to tackle the problem.

The state’s county boards of education, according to a story by The State Journal, are unwilling to wait on the state to address these issues and filed suit yesterday:

A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of 50 of West Virginia’s 55 county boards of education regarding the reporting and funding of Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB), or benefits employees receive when they retire.

Attorneys filed the suit in Kanawha County Circuit Court against the Public Employee Insurance Agency (PEIA), the PEIA Finance Board, and the West Virginia State Auditor’s Office on Monday, Feb. 22.

The counties argue that they should not be obligated to contribute more to the West Virginia Retiree Health Benefit Trust Fund than the amount of funding they receive from the state to take care of those OPEB costs, according to the lawsuit paperwork.

Fifty County Boards of Education File OPEB Lawsuit in Kanawha County – State Journal – STATEJOURNAL.com

One way or another the state will need to face the challenges posed by the growing bond and pension debt.

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