State Senators Discuss Bill In Committee That House Suspended Rules To Pass

State senators are taking the financial crisis of one school district as a chance to revisit broader funding issues in West Virginia schools. 

The Senate Education Committee spent over an hour Tuesday discussing House Bill 4574 to provide emergency funding to Hancock County Schools, but adjourned without taking action.

This is in contrast to the House of Delegates, where rules were suspended last week to quickly pass two bills after the state Board of Education announced the district was at risk of running out of funds by March. Some senators have already expressed frustration that their chamber has not matched the House’s sense of urgency on the matter.

Sen. Jay Taylor, R-Taylor, was one of several lawmakers who expressed concern Tuesday that emergency funds would paper over larger system issues with school funding and erode public trust. Taylor expressed confusion to state Superintendent Michele Blatt as to why the West Virginia Department of Education reported that a large portion of Hancock County Schools’ overspending was from being overstaffed, while the state as a whole continued to report chronic understaffing of teachers.

“The difference is, when you hear about that – it’s been a 1,700 number or 1,500 number (of vacancies) – those are people in positions that are not fully certified to be in those positions,” Blatt said. “The ‘vacancy’ word gets used a lot. They’re not true vacancies in that there’s not people there, but it’s a teacher that may be teaching algebra that does not have the certification to teach algebra.”

Taylor remained unconvinced.

“We come to them with stuff like this, ‘Hey, we need more money.’ They’re not going to trust us, and this is exactly why they don’t trust us,” he said. “This smoke and mirrors, cloak and dagger. ‘Oh, we got too much here, not enough there. Oh, this isn’t certified.’ Well, this is this, is this and this is that. That doesn’t make sense to the average West Virginian. And to be honest, it doesn’t make sense to me. It’s unacceptable.”

HB 4574 allows the West Virginia Board of Education to loan money to school districts with distressed finances under specific circumstances. Education Vice Chair Sen. Charles Clements, R-Wetzel, asked how the districts were expected to pay those loans back.

Blatt said much of the money – especially in the case of Hancock County Schools – will come from reductions in force, more commonly known as RIFs.

“It’s going to be very tight,” she said. “We do know that, moving forward in Hancock, one of the senators mentioned the fact that they also added on funding for a turf and athletic facility just really dug their hole even deeper.”

Senators are expected to continue their discussion Thursday morning.