DHHR Story Archives - Page 4 of 19 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

W.Va. Democrats Ask For Investigation Of CPS

In response to the DHHR’s inability to produce Child Protective Service travel records, the West Virginia Democratic Party has asked for an investigation into the department.

On Tuesday, the West Virginia Democratic Party (WVDP) Chair Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha issued a letter to Gov. Jim Justice, urging him to launch an immediate and thorough investigation into the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) handling of a particular child neglect case.

Earlier reporting by Eyewitness News revealed two children were found living in “devastating conditions” in a shed, with minimal facilities and inadequate care, leading to felony child neglect charges against Donald Ray Lantz and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather.

A recent Freedom of Information Act request by West Virginia Watch indicates that no travel records exist from Child Protective Service (CPS) workers confirming that they never visited the home despite multiple complaints from neighbors about the well-being of the children.

“The neighbors in this close-knit community out in Sissonville, the neighbors had been repeatedly calling CPS and at least we don’t see any kind of evidence that CPS responded to that,” Pushkin said. “To me, that’s very troubling and that warrants an investigation.”

In the letter, the WVDP states that they believe this CPS case is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a larger systematic issue within the state’s child welfare system.

“They can’t produce any documents to show that they actually responded, which would lead us to believe that they did not respond to these calls,” Pushkin said. “Is this an isolated incident? Or is this more part of just a culture of complacency or competency over there? And if so, is it possibly due to staffing shortages?”

Pushkin noted Justice’s “flat budget” as a possible reason behind CPS understaffing and shortcomings.

“Now the legislature and the governor can pat each other on the back for passing flat budgets and creating these artificial surpluses over the years,” Pushkin said. “But what does that really mean? It very well could possibly mean that we aren’t meeting essential services that need to be provided to the state, very least of which, would be taking care of children in the state’s custody. If we can’t do that, what can the state government do?”

Ongoing Litigation

DHHR employees and Justice are defendants in an ongoing class action lawsuit, originally filed in 2019, that alleged the state had violated the constitutional rights of more than 6,000 kids in the state foster system.

Allegations include the state failing to protect children, overburdened CPS workers, and leaving kids to languish in the system without any permanency plan.

Plaintiffs in the suit, A Better Childhood, a New York-based nonprofit, along with Shafer and Shafer and Disability Rights West Virginia, recently asked for sanctions in the case due to lack of evidence retention from the defendants.

The motion accuses the DHHR of “deliberate indifference” to due process claims brought by the attorneys representing foster children against DHHR.

Justice’s chief of staff, Brian Abraham, said in October, that the emails were deleted because of the Office of Technology’s protocol to delete the emails of employees who’d left their positions with the state.

“This administration was unaware that there was a policy in place at the Office of Technology to delete the emails of employees who left employment with the state of West Virginia,” Abraham said. “So there’s no basis whatsoever for any allegation that emails were intentionally deleted from any agency.”

Abraham added that the administration was not sure when the policy began or who enacted it, but said they are investigating this state-wide policy.

Marcia Robinson Lowry,the lead plaintiff in the case, said the defendants knew the emails she sought were evidence in the case.

“We don’t know whether anybody destroyed them willfully, or whether it was just more questions of competence and thoroughness on the part of the state, the state runs right now a very, very dysfunctional child welfare system,” Lowry said.

Dividing the DHHR

During the 2023 Legislative Session state lawmakers voted to divide the DHHR into three separate departments to increase transparency and improve outcomes in foster care. The new departments go into effect on Jan. 1.

There will now be a Department of Human Services for programs like Child Protective Services, a Department of Health and a Department of Health Facilities for facilities like state-run hospitals. Each agency will also have its own secretary to lead the agency.

The new secretaries are Dr. Sherri Young, incoming secretary of the Department of Health, Dr. Cynthia Persily, incoming secretary of the Department of Human Services and Michael Caruso, incoming secretary of the Department of Health Facilities.

Pushkin voted in favor of splitting the department but has voiced concerns about the efficacy of the split in improving health outcomes for West Virginia.

“Well, you know why I voted to split up the DHHR to three separate departments have often said, unless we really address the culture there,” Pushkin said. “Instead of having just one large dysfunctional department, we’re going to wind up with quite possibly three, slightly smaller, dysfunctional departments, until we really start prioritizing what’s important.”

State Agency Email Preservation Policies Under Review

Ongoing court cases involving West Virginia’s corrections and foster care agencies have raised concerns on retaining state agency emails as litigation evidence. Lawmakers are now getting responses in their attempt to ensure that needed emails are not lost.

A federal, class-action lawsuit filed in 2019 regarding the state’s foster care system has plaintiffs seeking sanctions. The case includes allegations of deleting emails of former state officials with the state Department of Health and Human Resources.

During recent legislative interim meetings, Del. Amy Summers, R-Taylor, the House Health and Human Resources Committee chair, questioned the incoming secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Cynthia Persily. Summers noted that Persily said department leaders were unaware of Office of Technology policies regarding email preservation.

“Secretary Persily said they did not know that the Office of Technology had a policy to dump out accounts once people left, ” Summers said. “That makes me assume that [former] DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch, [former] Interim DHHR Secretary Jeff Coben, and [former] DHHR Deputy Secretary Jeramiah Samples emails have all been purged.”

Since that period, lawmakers have divided DHHR into three cabinet agencies, beginning in June 2024.

Persily responded that the department is working closely with the Office of Technology to establish protocols to ensure nothing like this happens again. Summers asked the chair of the House Technology and Infrastructure Committee, Del. Daniel Linville, R-Cabell, to follow up.

In a related case/issue, the state settled part of a class-action lawsuit last week over conditions at the Southern Regional Jail. The $4 million settlement came after a federal magistrate said there was intentional destruction of email and documents demanded in evidence discovery. Two state corrections leaders were fired after the magistrate’s ruling. Following all that, the Justice Administration said the missing emails were discovered in a different place.

Linville told his committee members he would forward a letter from the Office of Technology detailing the present process and pending improvements. He said the letter was requested and received to make sure that “anytime the state is experiencing litigation, we don’t lose emails.”

The letter noted that on a daily basis, there are half a million emails received and 125,000 sent from the Office of Technology domain. Linville said the procedure to close a state employee’s account requires the agency to submit a “Deprovison Form.”

“When a person leaves state government for whatever reason, or even transfers to a different department of state government, their email is closed after 30 days, and then there’s an additional 20 days or so,” Linville said. “That’s a total of 50 or 55 total days wherein you can recover any emails that that person had while being employed by state government.”

The letter said if litigation is anticipated by an agency, leadership or counsel can request a legal hold on specific email accounts. The letter also stated that the Office of Technology, at the governor’s request, is developing an updated form and process for these requests. Linville said the process update may refer to cleaning up technical jargon, referring to specifics communicated to the Office of Technology as to what is to be preserved.

“Sometimes it’s all the emails an individual got, sometimes it’s emails that have a particular subject or key phrase in it,” Linville said. “And then, over what period? Is it all that are presently there, and any that may come in the future? Or is it just those which are under some certain date range? There are certainly improvements needed to that process.”

Summers said email preservation policies need to be measured as to the employee’s status.

“You can’t store everything, but you have to have a way that emails are deleted,” she said. “If you have the top level people in an agency, I think you might want to make sure there’s a different policy for retention with those individuals.”

Linville said there should be a comprehensive plan, all across the government and its different agencies, regarding email preservation.

“I look to address this in legislation next year, and begin to change what our default is,” Linville said. “That 30-day policy may be fine for a heavy equipment operator with the Division of Highways, but perhaps not for a director level or secretary of an agency.”

The Office of Technology letter noted an internal default. It said once provided to an agency, production data – as in emails – is not retained. The letter said it is the responsibility of the agency to manage and maintain the information in line with its legal strategy.

More Than Half Of DHHR’s Workforce Eligible For Retirement By 2029

A health committee Sunday heard reports from state officials that more than half of the Department of Health and Human Resources workforce will be eligible for retirement by 2029.

Dr. Sherri Young, interim secretary of Health and Human Resources, and incoming secretary of the Department of Health presented an update on the transition of the Department to the Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability.

She said while hiring initiatives have taken place and vacancies have been filled, more than 50 percent of the DHHR’s workforce will be eligible for retirement by 2029.

“Imagine five years from now 53 percent of those people retiring and going home,” Young told the committee. “You’re going to lose the institutional knowledge of the folks or nurses that have been there for 40 years. You’re going to lose that institutional knowledge of programs and how to make things work.”

She said it is important to build efficient systems during the restructuring of the department to avoid delays when that workforce retires.

“So we owe it to our citizens of West Virginia to make sure that we get the most efficient programs, but then we are backfilling and making sure that we are getting young folks and West Virginia folks in there to serve these programs now, because we have that additional vulnerability later on,” Young said.

Del. Bob Fehrenbacher, R-Wood, asked Young to survey the workforce to find out who will retire when they are eligible and who will stay on past retirement age.

“In my experience yes, there’s a day with experience and age that happened, but then workers may stay around longer,” Ferenbacher said. “And so to kind of understand when they’re eligible versus when they currently leave, I think would be interesting to kind of incorporate that into your you will attrition and planning and higher up in that regard.”

Young replied that while that survey could be useful, the retirement eligibility of the workforce is still a weakness in the system, one she hopes to remedy with planning.

“It’s not a bad question to go ahead and ask folks upon retirement eligibility, ‘Do you plan to stay?’ It’s our goal to make that a place where people want to stay,” Young said.

Former Contract Nurse At Sharpe Hospital Arrested For Murder

Tamra Jo Garvin was arrested on Nov. 7 and her “assignment at Sharpe Hospital was terminated, effective Nov. 8th,” according to a statement from the Department of Health and Human Resources’ (DHHR) Interim Cabinet Secretary, Sherri Young.

A former contract nurse at William R. Sharpe, Jr. Hospital was arrested on the charge of first-degree murder in an incident unrelated to the hospital.

Sharpe Hospital is an acute care psychiatric facility under the direction of the West Virginia DHHR. The facility has come under scrutiny in the past few years over its alleged mistreatment of patients.

www.Arre.st/WV

Young’s statement goes on to explain that before Garvin was hired at Sharpe Hospital, she underwent “a comprehensive fingerprint-based federal and state background check through WV CARES.”

This screening revealed no cause for concern at the time, but Young stated WV Cares monitors criminal records and notifies authorities of any changes in criminal record information.

Garvin is currently being held in the Central Regional Jail.

Suspended DHHR Supervisor Pleads Not Guilty

Timothy Priddy, former director of the DHHR’s Center for Threat Preparedness, was suspended after he allegedly lied about the verification process for millions of dollars of COVID-19 test supply kits.

A former West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) supervisor indicted in a federal grand investigation appeared in a federal court Thursday.

Priddy appeared in the U.S. District Court Thursday in Charleston after being indicted on four criminal counts.

According to the indictment, an out-of-state vendor submitted nearly $45 million dollars in invoices for more than 500,000 covid test kits. However, only 50,000 test results were reported by the vendor between October 2020 and March 2022.

Priddy is accused of lying about the audit process during an interview with an FBI agent and a U.S. Postal Inspector and later making false statements before a grand jury.

During his court appearance Thursday, Priddy entered a not guilty plea and was freed on a $10,000 unsecured bond. His trial date is set for Dec. 19.

Following Priddy’s indictment the Senate Finance Committee continues to scrutinize a number of administration and state agency spending issues.

“There are investigations that are still out there,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, said. “As they go forward, you’re going to see more and more of these types of indictments.”

Attorneys File Motion For Sanctions Against DHHR

In a class action lawsuit against the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR), attorneys filed a motion Wednesday morning asking U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin to grant a motion for sanctions.

The motion accuses the DHHR of “deliberate indifference” to due process claims brought by the attorneys representing 12 foster children against DHHR.

Gov. Jim Justice’s chief of staff, Brian Abraham, said the emails were deleted because of the Office of Technology’s protocol to delete the emails of employees who’d left their positions with the state.

Abraham added that the administration was not sure when the policy began or who enacted it, but said they are investigating this state-wide policy.

The lawsuit against the DHHR was originally filed in September 2019. The original complaint against West Virginia officials alleged that they violated the rights of a dozen foster care children.

Marcia Robinson Lowry is the lead plaintiff for the class and executive director of A Better Childhood (ABC). ABC is counsel for the children, along with Shaffer & Shaffer, a West Virginia law firm and the non-profit organization Disability Rights of West Virginia.

The group filed a complaint in federal court in October 2019, denouncing the Department of Health and Human Resource’s “over-reliance” on shelter care, shortages in case workers and a “failure to appropriately plan for the children in its custody.”

The following year, a motion for class action status was filed but left undecided when the case was dismissed in 2021. In 2022, that decision was reversed by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the class action motion was renewed in May 2023.

According to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) Child Welfare Dashboard, on October 26, 2023, there are 6,197 children in state care.