Thursday's Internet Edition, September 09, 2010.

Manchin used his line-item veto to eliminate or trim 55 items in the budget, cutting the spending plan to go into effect July 1 by just over $17 million.

Smaller cuts were made in programs including fairs and festivals and funding for libraries.

Although the money for 4-H camps was eliminated completely, Manchin left hope that funding for the projects may be available from a supplementary appropriations bill he will submit to a special session.

Manchin objected to the legislature moving funds for the camps from the W.Va. Development Office to the Dept. of Agriculture.

“By moving the appropriation and administration from the agency with expertise in tracking these grants, the transparency, accountability and efficiency for this appropriation may be compromised,” the governor wrote in his veto message.

“It is my intent to introduce a supplementary appropriation bill that will provide funding in the West Virginia Development Office for 4-H Camp Improvements,” he wrote.

Camp Sheppard advisory committee member Kate Burbank said the committee was hoping to get $20,000 to start construction of an eighth new cabin at the camp.

Six new cabins have been built at the camp and a seventh is nearly complete.

“We’re two weeks of work away from having it completely finished,” Burbank said.

Burbank said the cabins cost in excess of $100,000 each, and the state funds were important to get the eighth cabin underway.

Two years ago Manchin vetoed $100,000 that had been included in the budget for Camp Sheppard.

The camp never received those funds, but the following year Burbank said local lawmakers were able to provide two grants that totaled $41,000.

Burbank said she did not know how many camps around the state were included in the $650,000, but she hopes the money will be made available when lawmakers meet in special session later this year.

“The grant money is extremely important to us to be able to complete this eighth cabin,” she said.

Manchin also cut 2-1/2 percent from the more than $2 million set aside for fairs and festivals, a reduction of just over $80,000.

The will put allocations for the Black Walnut Festival at $9,750 and Spencer’s Heritage Days at $1,463 and, in Calhoun County, the Appalachian Mountain Bike Race at $1,463, the Molasses Festival, $1,950, the Upper West Fork VFD Bluegrass Festival, $683, and the Calhoun County Wood Festival, $1,950.

Also cut 2-1/2 percent were funds for the Roane County 4-H and FFA Youth Livestock program, which will receive $4,875, and the Roane Agricultural Field Day, which will receive $2,925.

The governor eliminated a provision that would have allowed money allocated to festivals in 2010 and not spent to be reappropriated to fairs the following year.

The governor cut $2.1 million set aside for community and technical college improvements. That includes $300,000 for the WVU-P Jackson County Center in Ripley.

The governor also cut 5 percent from funding grants for public libraries, which was left with an appropriation of $7.9 million, and special projects for libraries, trimmed to $744,000.

Senior citizens centers and programs were cut by 5 percent, leaving $2,470,000 in the line item

Manchin’s veto message said the reductions he requested were modest and “sustainable without disrupting services and will help tremendously in future years when federal stimulus funds are no longer available.”