With fears of a federal COVID-19 relief fund clawback quashed, Gov. Jim Justice urged lawmakers to restore funding to health and human services in West Virginia.
For weeks, the possible federal clawback of $465 million in COVID-19 relief funding for schools has loomed large in West Virginia.
But on Friday Gov. Jim Justice announced the state would not have to return the funds, which the United States Department of Education initially said were not spent according to federal guidelines.
News of the potential clawback threw a wrench into the final weeks of the West Virginia Legislature’s regular session this year. Out of caution, lawmakers ultimately approved a state budget of $4.9 billion — a figure lower than the $5.22 billion budget Justice proposed in January.
In March, Justice announced plans to hold a special legislative session in May to reexamine budget spending. With the specter of the clawback removed, lawmakers are now looking to bulk up the state budget.
And Justice has expressed a particular focus on restoring funding to West Virginia’s health and human resources.
State lawmakers significantly reduced funding for Medicaid services in this year’s regular legislative session.
This included a reduction of nearly $11 million in funding for the state’s Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) Waiver program, which provides residents with disabilities financial support and at-home health services.
During a virtual press briefing Tuesday, Justice said the dismissal of the federal clawback opens the door for restored funding.
“Where we need to concentrate our efforts right off the get-go is to restore the dollars that we pulled out of the budget … for the most needy of our people,” he said. “We didn’t need to [cut funding], and if we don’t watch out we’re going to get our really needy folks in a real mess.”
Lawmakers who supported the cuts during this year’s regular session said the reductions would increase spending transparency and limit unnecessary expenditures.
But opponents of the budget cuts have expressed concern that the lack of funding could broadly reduce Medicaid services for West Virginia residents, including individuals with disabilities.
In March, Justice announced plans to call a special legislative session before May 14, West Virginia’s primary election. He said reexamining the state budget was a top priority for the prospective session.
Meanwhile, state lawmakers have expressed a preference that the session be held later in May, to coincide with interim meetings at the State Capitol.
As of Tuesday, no date for the special session has been finalized.
Domestic violence prevention nonprofits have not received a state budget increase since 2009. Advocates hope a special session of the West Virginia Legislature could change that.
Tucked away on a side street of downtown Martinsburg, the Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center (EPEC) is a domestic violence prevention nonprofit serving Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties.
EPEC was founded in 1977 and expanded with time. Ten years ago, Executive Director Katie Spriggs said the EPEC served 250 people annually. Now, it serves more than 1,400 people each year.
Visits to EPEC may be on the rise, but Spriggs said funding has not increased sufficiently to meet them.
Looking at EPEC’s first-floor office it immediately becomes clear. Each day, staff members squeeze into corners of the room with laptops and cell phones in hand.
“We have probably on an average day 12 people that work out of this office, so it’s not large enough,” Spriggs said.
According to Spriggs, moving out of EPEC’s apartment-turned-office into a larger space would bring benefits. But a potential move and the expansion of current EPEC services are constrained by the same factor: the budget.
“We’re kind of stuck,” she said. “We haven’t seen an increase in so long that it’s really difficult to make the budget work every year.”
In West Virginia, domestic violence prevention nonprofits receive funding through a variety of sources, like private donations, federal grants and a line item included annually in the state budget.
But the state has not boosted that line item since May 2009, even as the cost of living has risen.
In recent years, Gov. Jim Justice has pursued a flat budget, which means freezing state spending so it stays the same each year. While surplus funds get redistributed, they do not supplement every budget item.
Continuing to provide resources to survivors of domestic violence requires reliable funding on the state level, she said.
Katie Spriggs, executive director of the Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center, is in the process of digitizing decades of the center’s paper records.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Sara Belvins O’Toole, director of development at Huntington’s Branches Domestic Violence Shelter, said part of the need for additional funding stems from changing conversations around domestic violence prevention.
In the early days, Belvins O’Toole said advocates were focused primarily on removing individuals from crisis situations.
They now understand helping people stay away from abusive relationships requires more holistic assistance, she said.
“People who are just plopped out of a situation and put into another environment don’t have the resources and the skills and the support that they need to actually stay away from a person that was violent in their life,” Belvins O’Toole said. “Especially if that person was in control of the finances.”
Approaching domestic violence on a holistic level means considering other factors that put survivors at risk, like housing insecurity and child care needs.
“We have to do a little bit of that other work like housing advocacy, like legal advocacy — all of those things that are providing support,” Belvins O’Toole said. “It’s not about just getting somebody out of crisis anymore. It’s about supporting them into a life free from violence.”
But this is easier said than done. Joyce Yedlsoky, team coordinator at the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WVCADV), said that the state’s flat budget has also affected separate nonprofits that address these needs directly.
In turn, she said domestic violence prevention advocates must wear multiple hats, spreading their time and funding thinner.
The budget “being able to account for other aspects that survivors need” is important as well, she said.
Through the WVCADV, Yedlosky works with the 14 licensed domestic violence prevention nonprofits located across West Virginia. In February, she helped arrange a visit to the State Capitol featuring representatives from each of these organizations.
The advocates lined the Capitol’s lower rotunda with tables, passing out stickers and informational flyers to visitors and lawmakers alike.
Yedlosky also took the time to speak with lawmakers about the nonprofits’ current financial needs, and said they were generally supportive of securing new funds.
But, since then, Yedlosky said lines of communication between lawmakers and the nonprofits have all but closed.
“Since the session ended, we haven’t heard from lawmakers specifically around our funding,” she said.
Staff members Katie Brougham, Serena Hemple and Foxfire Formoso (from left) stand in the entryway of the Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
By the time this year’s regular session of the West Virginia Legislature ended, no budget line increases for domestic violence nonprofits had been passed. New funding for services like child care were also left out entirely.
Still, this year’s budget is not completely settled. Gov. Jim Justice has expressed disapproval of some funding omissions from this year’s budget, and in March announced plans to call a special legislative session to reconsider the budget.
Justice said he plans to hold the session by May 14, the state’s primary election. Members of the Legislature’s leadership have indicated they would prefer for the session to coincide with interim meetings beginning May 19.
In a dream scenario, Yedlosky said she would like to see a $500,000 cost-of-living increase to the state’s funding for domestic violence nonprofits, which currently sits at $2.5 million split annually between all 14 licensed organizations.
But Yedlosky said she’s not holding her breath for what the special session will bring.
“To be honest, I don’t think that that’s on the table for the special session,” she said. “It would be really nice if it was.”
Instead, Yedlosky said she hopes that lawmakers will reverse course and provide new funding to other services like child care.
“I do believe if they reinstate back some of the huge cuts that they made, that’s also going to help survivors,” she said. “That’s my hope.”
Back in the Eastern Panhandle, Spriggs echoed Yedlosky’s calls for a cost-of-living budget increase. She described an increase like this as a critical way to reduce the risks that survivors of domestic violence face across the state.
“A line item increase on the state budget would not only keep the lights on and give us a foundation to grow on,” she said. “It would also prevent violence. A lot of violence.”
For more information on domestic violence prevention resources in West Virginia, visit the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s website.
Tudor’s “Mountaineer” biscuit was named “The South’s Best Biscuit” in an online poll contest held by Garden & Gun, a southern lifestyle magazine.
West Virginia’s biscuit business icon is receiving a regional reward. Homebased in Charleston, fans of the Tudor’s Biscuit World restaurant chain have taken a country breakfast staple to award winning heights.
Tudor’s “Mountaineer” biscuit was named “The South’s Best Biscuit” in an online poll contest held by Garden & Gun, a southern lifestyle magazine.
Garden & Gun had the public vote in a bracket-style contest to name the best biscuit among regional chains, local favorites, national chains, and gas stations. Tudor’s took 56 percent of the final vote to win the title.
“This win was made possible by Tudor’s customers, and we truly appreciate each and every one of them,” said Ray Burke of Tudor’s. “Tudor’s has been a staple breakfast for West Virginians on the go for decades, and we want to thank them for their loyalty.”
The “Mountaineer” was the specific biscuit to win the Garden & Gun contest. It consists of country ham, potato, egg, and cheese on a made-from-scratch buttermilk biscuit.
To say thanks to voters, Tudors’ will hold a Customer Appreciation Day on Monday, April 22, by offering a Buy-One-Get-One free deal for its “Mountaineer” and “Thundering Herd” biscuits.
Hill Top House Hotel, a controversial luxury venue planned for Harpers Ferry, is pursuing new financing models through West Virginia’s tax increment financing program.
Overlooking the Potomac River, the future site of the Hill Top House Hotel has been blocked off with chain-link fences and sheets of fabric for years.
First proposed in 2007, the luxury hotel aimed to renovate and expand a historic nineteenth-century hotel that had fallen into disrepair.
The plan generated controversy among residents concerned about the scale of the project, which includes an underground parking garage, on-site restaurant and public green space.
For their part, representatives with SWaN & Legend Venture Partners — the Virginia-based investment group that owns the property — have maintained their intention to see the project through, even as local objections have ebbed and flowed.
But community pushback has not come without challenges, according to SWaN CEO Karen Schaufeld. The years of delays to the project have altered the project’s costs, which Schaufeld said rose significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The increase in construction and building costs due to numerous delays and, subsequently, the COVID-19 pandemic caused Hill Top’s total project cost to balloon to $150 million,” she wrote Thursday in an email to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
To offset these new costs and help complete a project decades in the making, SWaN representatives are pursuing a new financing model: West Virginia’s tax increment financing (TIF) program.
Schaufeld wrote that admission to the program is a “financial necessity” for the hotel’s completion.
Some properties along Washington Street in Harpers Ferry have been purchased and prepared for development by SWaN & Legend Venture Partners.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The TIF program identifies areas in need of development and economic revitalization. By designating these areas as TIF districts, property developers can receive financial support for their projects on site.
When a site is declared a TIF district, its property value is frozen for a number of years, during which property owners can further develop within the district without facing increased property taxes.
On April 4, the Jefferson County Commission took the first steps toward securing the hotel its new status, voting narrowly to submit a TIF district application to the West Virginia Department of Economic Development.
This is merely a first step in the process, as the Jefferson County Commission will receive final approval over TIF districting plans.
Still, during an April 4 commission meeting, some members of the commission expressed concern over the speed of the application process, and encouraged additional time for public feedback.
Additionally, county commissioners expressed concern that the application was not complete at the time of their voting.
“I think we need to schedule another public hearing,” said County Commissioner Tricia Jackson, who voted against the application. “I think it would be irresponsible and reckless for this commission to advance this without having completed application information and [having] the public’s involvement.”
Last fall, the commission hosted a separate public hearing to receive community input over the plans. Additionally, the commission hosted a workshop on TIF districts in late March in preparation for the project.
Schaufeld said that the TIF district application “is a dynamic document, which contains values that change with time.”
This Harpers Ferry overlook has been slated for the development of Hill Top House Hotel, prompting detours for local access roads.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“Since the progression of this TIF application was delayed by many months due to the Jefferson County Commission itself, there are certain areas that are being updated,” she wrote.
Other members of the commission said delaying the application process could have adverse effects on the project on the whole.
County Commissioner Pasha Majdi, who voted in favor of the application, added that the commission would have time to review the results from the Department of Economic Development before making a final decision.
“I’m concerned that if we delay this application, we would risk losing funding for public benefits like an underground parking garage and green space,” he said. “The project, it’s going to continue regardless. But without a TIF these public benefits could be lost.”
Ultimately, the commission voted in favor of the application 3 to 2, advancing a project characterized by years-long standstills.
In her email, Schaufeld wrote that SWaN expects a “swift turnaround” on their application, and a response from the Department of Economic Development within 60 days of its submission.
Once a response has been received, the application will return to the Jefferson County Commission for final approval. If approved, the county will then have three to six months to finalize bonds for the project.
Schaufeld added that the project’s latest advancement has brought renewed excitement.
“We hope that after many years of costly delays we will be able to bring this project to life so that these economic benefits can finally come to Jefferson County,” she wrote.
Employees at Federal Correctional Complex Hazelton who are in good standing will receive a 25 percent pay increase — part of an effort to boost staff retention and promote facility safety.
Personnel at a Preston County prison will soon receive a 25 percent pay increase, following union protests over understaffing last year.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons and the United States Office of Personnel Management approved the pay increase Thursday as part of an effort to increase staff retention at the Federal Correctional Complex Hazelton.
Staffing issues at the federal prison gained attention in 2018 following the deaths of three inmates in a seven-month span, including the murder of an inmate serving a life sentence.
Leadership changes following the incident improved staffing levels at the facility, according to corrections officer Justin Tarovisky, who also serves as union president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 420 chapter.
Tarovisky’s union represents more than 600 workers at the facility, from West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, he said.
But the departure of some members of the facility’s leadership, coupled with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated prior staffing issues to a new degree, Tarovisky said.
“Since that, we’ve drastically declined,” he said. In September, union representatives reported that more than 80 corrections officer positions were vacant.
Tarovisky said that understaffing in correctional facilities poses safety risks for current personnel.
“I mean, we’re a 24-hour operation. It’s not a job where you just leave at the end of the day, you go home, and you don’t have nobody there,” he said. “We have to have correctional officers at the facility to run a safe mission.”
To raise awareness about challenges to the facility, union workers lined a Monongalia County roadside last September, picketing with bright-colored signs demanding new hiring initiatives.
“We need hiring incentives to bring in new recruits,” Tarovisky said. “You have a lot of other law enforcement agencies within this country — whether it’s state police, whether it’s corrections in Pennsylvania — that … were offering higher incentives. So why would you want to come to Hazelton?”
Tarovisky said state officials were receptive to the union’s requests.
In November, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) urging the organization’s approval of a 25 percent retention incentive for staff at the facility.
“FCC Hazelton faces a dangerous staffing shortage that, while challenging, could be improved by providing current employees with a much-deserved pay increase,” he wrote in the letter.
After the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published a report in February that the BOP failed to prevent the deaths of 14 inmates at the West Virginia facility in just eight years — the second-highest number in the nation — Manchin renewed his calls for federal intervention.
Other allegations disclosed in a 2023 DOJ report included the falsification of documents from supervisory staff at the facility; the usage of racial slurs and punitive housing restrictions from workers; and even the assault of inmates by facility staff.
Manchin said that understaffing exacerbated dangerous conditions like these in the facility. Likewise, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said that the 2023 DOJ findings suggested the facility was unable to provide a safe environment for inmates and workers.
Tarovisky credits calls from West Virginia’s senators, plus additional support from U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney, with pushing the pay increase forward.
“Unbelievable job, what they’ve done for the staff at Hazelton. This is what we’ve been asking for, and this is what they’ve been pressing on,” he said. “They put all politics aside to represent the people at FCC Hazelton.”
The pay raise will apply to all of the facility’s corrections officers who are currently in good standing. But it will also bump starting salaries at the facility up by 25 percent, which Tarovisky said will help make the facility more enticing in a competitive job market.
“That’s what’s so great about this,” he said. “Now, we can compete even higher with other agencies.”
Manchin applauded the new funding in a Thursday press release, adding that he hopes it will reduce safety risks in the prison.
“The facility has long suffered from severe staffing shortages, especially of correctional officers, that have resulted in a hostile environment for both employees and inmates,” he said. “This pay incentive is much-deserved for current employees and will help recruit new qualified officers and staff, which will promote safer conditions for employees and inmates.”
**Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that allegations of falsified documents and staff abuse came from a February 2024 Department of Justice report. They came from a September 2023 report. The story has been updated with the correction.
Allegheny Wood Products announced it was closing its doors in February, laying off more than 900 employees. AHF Products, a wood flooring company, has agreed to acquire two sawmills from the defunct company.
Allegheny Wood Products announced it was closing its doors in February, laying off more than 900 employees. AHF Products, a wood flooring company, has agreed to acquire two sawmills from the defunct company.
Chief Operating Officer Jake Loftis said the acquisition will save an estimated 80 jobs that would have been lost last week.
“We are excited to add this capability to AHF and operate the mills at a capacity that will positively impact people and these two communities,” Loftis said.
Allegheny Wood Products was a supplier of lumber to the flooring company.
“It’s another key step to ensure AHF’s success now and in the future,” Lofits said.
The sawmills will now continue to supply lumber for AHF, a step the wood flooring company said was necessary for securing lumber supplies for current and future operations. The sawmills that will reopen are located in Greenbrier and Randolph counties.
AHF said West Virginia lumber could be used for other company locations in the future, although currently, it is not economical to do so.
Eastern hardwood has steeply declined in the last two decades, sitting at 40 percent of what it was in 2007.
