CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Ben Salango will serve as the next president of the Kanawha County Commission.
Ben Salango
Commissioners Lance Wheeler and Natalie Tennant voted for Salango to be the president during the first meeting of 2025 on Thursday.
“I appreciate the vote and the vote of confidence,” Salango said.
Salango, who considered entering the 2024 race for the Democratic nomination for Governor, has been on the Commission since 2017. He was the Democratic nominee for Governor in 2020.
Commissioner Lance Wheeler, who served as commission president in 2024, says Salango knows how to be a leading representative residents can depend on.
Lance Wheeler
“This job is more than the two meetings that we have a month, and you understand what that’s like, to be that person, that commissioner, that elected representative that’s reaching out to all of Kanawha County,” Wheeler told Salango at Thursday’s meeting. “Whether they’re in incorporated or unincorporated, whether they live in a city of 50,000 or if they live in a community of 20 homes, those are the important people equally and you understand that.”
Wheeler had taken over as president last year, replacing Kent Carper, who had served in the role since 2003.
Salango says Wheeler got plenty done for the county in a short window.
“You’ve done a great job for the Kanawha County Commission as president,” Salango said to Wheeler. “The water projects, the sewer projects, and taking lead on our legislative agenda. You’ve accomplished a lot in a very short period of time.”
Later on in the meeting, the Commission looked over the fiscal year 2025-2026 budget. Wheeler, who led the meeting Thursday for the final time before handing the reins to Salango, says it’s a point of concern for him.
“I am personally a little concerned with this budget coming in,” Wheeler said. “I personally do not believe we are going to see the number increase we saw last year which was $1.2 million.”
With the budget, the Commission brought up multiple factors, including the significant increases to the Public Employees Insurance Agency and more.
Wheeler says the Commission will need to look for ways to save money where it can.
“I think that we’re going to need to look at every cost-saving measure that we can,” Wheeler said. “Not only is PEIA increasing, we’ve got the jail bill that we’re expecting to go up as well. These are things that are not in the budget right now. We’re going to have to cover those increases for next year, so we need to find cost-saving measures now that we can say, ‘we’re not going to affect our employees. We’re not going to affect public service.”
Wheeler also says the Commission will have to be intentional with each request put before them.
“I think a lot of elected officials came back to us last year and they had a lot of requests for increases. I think we need to be very careful of the messaging to our elected officials, telling them, ‘We’re not going to be able to afford an a la carte of increases that you’re going to request,” Wheeler said. “We will look at every request appropriately, but I think we need to be very careful of what we promise, what we say we can do, and really look at the numbers because if all of our elected officials and our outside agencies get what they’re going to request, we’ll be bankrupt in a couple of months.”
Thursday’s meeting was the first for newly elected Commissioner Natalie Tennant.