West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Telling West Virginia's Story
On this West Virginia Morning, we’ll hear more from eighth-grade students at Wheeling Middle School who teamed up with Northern Panhandle Bureau Chief Glynis Board to report and produce stories and commentaries about the issues that affect them the most.
We’ll also hear an update from The Ohio Valley ReSource about an effort in Congress to save retired miners’ benefits.
The Government Organization Committee met Friday to discuss a number of bills, one of which was House Bill 2217, relating to the qualifications of the Commissioner of Labor. With a bill that’s been getting a lot of attention, it was relatively quiet in committee today, with only one vocalized vote against it progressing to the floor.
Earlier this week, this was not the case. On Tuesday, the Committee on Industry and Labor first saw the bill, and some delegates were very concerned.
Currently in state code, the Commissioner of Labor is described as a competent person, who is identified with the labor interests of the state. House Bill 2217 strikes that language to read; has knowledge and experience in employee issues and interests including employee-employer relations in the state.
This language change didn’t go over well with Delegate Mike Caputo from Marion County.
Caputo questioned John Reed, counsel for the Committee of Labor, asking him if the change would alter the qualifications of the Labor Commissioner and require him or her to have a background in Human Resources or HR work.
Reed said he didn’t think so, and said the new language was still looking out for employees. But Caputo wasn’t convinced. He asked for the current Commissioner of Labor, John Junkins to speak to the committee.
Delegates on both sides questioned the commissioner about the qualifications this bill might change. They asked about employee-employer relations, and by the end, there was a distinct split on feelings about the word change.
“We’ve heard from the commissioner, and this agency was established in 1898, and its purpose was to protect the worker,” said Delegate Caputo, “That’s what the gentleman said; protect the worker. Now take a look at the language in this amendment. I can see a CEO becoming labor commissioner for the state of West Virginia. Maybe that CEO worked at a factory for a year or two and got into management, worked his or her way through, became CEO, now all of a sudden, they’re going to come down and protect the interest of the worker? That’s insane. That’s just absolutely insane. Look we’ve got to have good labor management relationships at the workplace, but this agency is not about that, this agency is to look out for the worker.”
Delegate Daryl Cowles from Morgan County spoke to support the change saying it made more sense.
“The bill says the amendment would say, a competent person identified with employee issues of the state and has knowledge and experience in employee issues and interests, including employee, employer relations,” Cowles said, “It would seem to me that employee, employer relations are very important indeed, very important to the interest of employees. It simply clarifies the mission and direction, the mandate of the office does not change with this bill; doesn’t gut anything. The mission and mandate do not change. The qualifications and experience of the appointed position are simply clarified.”
House Bill 2217 will report to the floor for its first reading on Monday, February 2nd.
A Government Organization subcommittee reviewed an evaluation of the state Athletic Commission today and recommendations to improve the agency’s bottom line.
Two representatives from the state Performance Evaluation and Research Division presented their review of the Athletic Commission, which oversees boxing and mixed martial arts competitions in West Virginia.
The representatives expressed concern over the commission’s ability to support itself financially, saying since 2010, the commission hasn’t taken in enough revenues to support its expenditures.
The representatives recommended the Athletic Commission be rolled into the State Lottery Commission so administrative duties and costs could be shared. The evaluation team also recommended increasing or eliminating their annual expense limit of 55 hundred dollars.
Lawmakers were updated Wednesday on the roll out process of the state’s new software system designed to integrate almost every function in government.
The first phase of WVOASIS, or ‘Our Advanced Solution with Integrated Systems, was implemented in August of 2013. It’s latest phase took effect July of this year, but wasn’t necessarily the smooth transition many state officials had hoped for.
“There were round pegs into round holes and square pegs into square holes,” Rick Pickens, director of the OASIS project, told a Joint Committee on Government Organization Wednesday, “but unfortunately there was some of the opposite, round into square, square into round that we’ve had to do some work on.”
Phase C, as its designated, transitioned a lot of the back-office business functions of the state into the new system. It included things like accounts payable and receivable, contracts, purchasing, and investments.
After the initial roll out this summer, the OASIS help desk was receiving around 400 call per day from the more than 4,000 employees using the system. That number has dropped to around 100 calls per week on of Pickens’s staffers reported.
“They’re making a change from a customized system that did business exactly the way they wanted to do business,” Pickens said, “to a commercial, off the shelf software that’s been configured and customized to fit us.”
That means employees will have to get used to a new “rhythm” of processing, Pickens said, one that asks for more detailed information and takes longer to complete.
The next phase of the program, Phase D, was scheduled to roll out January 1, 2015, but the administration decided last week to hold off on that implementation when they couldn’t meet the necessary milestones.
Phase D will all 65,000 state employees. It controls payroll and HR functions, vacation time and billing.
Pickens said they are in the process of testing that system. A recent test of the old payroll system paired side-by-side with the new OASIS system, however, ended with two different results, meaning without a fix, OASIS would result in employees being paid incorrectly.
Phase D has now been delayed by at least three months. The new system is now expected to be implemented in April.