Changes are in the works at the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources in response to an audit that found the agency is inefficient.
DHHR Secretary Karen Bowling plans to break the agency into three divisions covering human services, health services, and insurance and strategic planning. Each division would oversee several bureaus within the agency. Deputy secretaries would be appointed to lead the divisions.
The Charleston Daily Mail reports that Bowling outlined the plan Monday during a legislative interim committee meeting.
Bowling told lawmakers that the plan would give bureau heads more time to deal with their offices’ day-to-day workings.
The audit by consulting firm Public Works found that the DHHR wastes millions of dollars and has a high turnover rate.
Tag: Government
Many W.Va. Students Don't Earn Degrees in Six Years
Many in-state students at West Virginia's public higher education institutions don't earn a degree after six years. An annual graduation report shows…
Many in-state students at West Virginia’s public higher education institutions don’t earn a degree after six years.
An annual graduation report shows fewer than half of in-state freshmen enrolled in fall 2005 earned their degrees six years later.
West Virginia University was the exception. The university’s 2012 six-year graduation rate was 56 percent.
Marshall University’s six-year graduation rate was 44 percent, followed by Shepherd University, 43 percent; and West Liberty University, 41 percent.
Other schools’ rates were: Concord University, 38 percent; Fairmont State University, 34 percent, Glenville State College, 30 percent; Bluefield State College, 25 percent; WVU Tech, 24 percent; and West Virginia State University, 21 percent.
The Charleston Gazette reports that higher education officials presented the report Monday to an interim legislative committee.
Heavy Rainfall, Snow Cause Widespread Road Closures
Heavy rainfall over the past few days has lead to road closures in many areas around the state, including roads in Berkeley, Braxton, Boone, Clay, Kanawha, Mason, Putnam, Cabell, Lincoln, Logan, Mingo, Wayne, Roane, Wood, Harrison, Marion, Marshall, Ohio, Tyler, Upshur, Randolph, Nicholas counties.
Update: Monday, December 9, 2013 at 10:55 a.m.
The Department of Transportation reports that new closures are in effect in Lincoln and Raleigh counties, and dangerous conditions in Mercer County have caused many closures there as well.
Update: Monday, December 9, 2013 at 8:53 a.m.
Plymale Branch in Wayne County has been reopened and new road closures are being reported in Cabell, Lincoln, and Wayne counties.
For more info, please see the latest report from the Department of Transportation.
Update: Sunday, December 8, 2013 at 9:08 a.m.
Roads closures remain in effect around the state, although some roadways have been reopened in Kanawha and Randolph counties. For the latest, please check information from the state Department of Transportation, released at 7:00 a.m. Sunday.
Update: Saturday, December 7, 2013 at 2:55 p.m.
Douglas Grove in Berkeley County has been added to the list of roads closed around the state. Haines Branch in Kanawha County and Carpenter Fork Rd. in Braxton County have been reopened.
For the latest list of road closures and reopenings, please visit the West Virginia Department of Transportation’s list, which was released at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
Original Story Published: Saturday, December 7, 2013 at 12:58 p.m.
The West Virginia Division of Transportation has compiled a list of all roads closed as of 9:20 a.m. Saturday.
For accident reports and other travel-related updates, be sure to check WV511.org.
American Legion Post 16 in Huntington to Host Forum
The country’s largest organization of wartime veterans, the American Legion will host a town hall meeting in Huntington tonight.
Members of the American Legion’s System Worth Savings Task Force plan to listen to concerns of veteran’s about the care they receive at the VA Medical Center in Huntington. Periodically the team visits VA Medical Centers is different regions of the country to evaluate the care being given, part of each trip includes a sit down with veterans from the area and specifically ones who have received care at the VA.
Jacob Gadd is Deputy Director for Health Care for the American Legion.
“We’ve found that veterans have a lot of pride in the care that they receive at the VA and while there are some challenges with parking or getting an appointment, different types of challenges with access, but we also encounter quality of care issues and concerns,” Gadd said.
As part of the teams site visit they’ll interview patients, staff and administrators at the hospital. The System Worth Savings Task Force was created in 2003. Gadd said the site visits are important to make sure that the veterans continue receiving the care they should.
“We’ve seen tremendous improvement over the last ten years and that’s really our goal with this report, understanding what improvements have been made, what issues or concerns the 15 hospitals we’re visiting this year are facing and then what is the VA’s five year plan,” Gadd said.
The task force travels to about 15 VA medical centers per year. They’ll compile an annual report based on findings and submit it to Congress, the White House and senior VA leadership. Veterans with concerns are invited to attend the meeting at the American Legion Post 16 Monday night at 7pm.
State's Court E-Filing System Being Put to Test Tuesday
A Fairmont attorney is days away from making judicial history in West Virginia.
Attorney J. Scott Tharp will file a civil suit on line Tuesday in Marion County Circuit Court, testing West Virginia’s new e-filing system.
The court’s clerk, Rhonda Starn, told The State Journal the e-filing system will save counties thousands of dollars and won’t cost a single job.
The West Virginia Supreme Court is picking up the tab for the statewide technology upgrade.
Matt Arrowood is director of the court’s division overseeing circuit clerk services. He said the Marion County e-filing system will work out any bugs before it’s rolled out statewide.
Company Bids to House W.Va. Prisoners in Ky. Facility
With the opening of an envelope and the reading of a few numbers, the state Purchasing Office completed a bid opening Thursday for the Division of Corrections.
The request for proposals, known as an RFP in government jargon, asked national companies or state corrections departments to bid on sending West Virginia inmates to their out-of-state facilities in the hopes of curbing the state over crowding problem.
“At one point we had over 1,800 inmates who had been sentenced to the Division of Corrections awaiting bed space in one of the 10 regional jails,” DOC Commissioner Jim Rubenstein said.
The Corrections Corporation of America was one of two companies to attend a mandatory pre-bid conference in October, but is the only bidder on the proposal.
The national organization houses nearly 80,000 offenders at 64 facilities in 20 states. They’re proposing West Virginia send its inmates to their Beattyville, Ky., facility the Lee Adjustment Center.
Lee, a three hour drive from Charleston, has a total of 816 beds and currently houses 450 men from Vermont. The DOC requires West Virginia’s population to be separated from any other out-of-state prisoners at the facility, which CCA said is possible at the Lee Center.
According to their bid, CCA could immediately take 350 inmates from West Virginia with the possibility of expanding to fit up to 400, which Rubenstein calls a temporary solution for the state’s overcrowding problem.
“When I say temporary, I wish I could put more of a time frame on it than that, which I can’t, but by no means is this an out-of-sight, out-of-mind banishment of any sort,” he said Thursday.
“This is purely getting those offenders engaged immediately in the programming, the treatment, the work, everything they need to be involved in being prepared to see the parole board upon their first appearance.”
Classes, counseling and treatment these offenders currently do not have access to in regional jails.
In the RFP, companies were asked to detail how they would meet 68 mandatory items set forth by the DOC. Those included the types of rehabilitative and educational programming available to inmates, a facility that meets the American Correctional Association’s standards and access to medical and mental health services, just to name a few.
“We wanted to match up as close as possible to the operation of our facilities and to meet the needs of what the parole board wanted to see the inmate to achieve when appearing in front of them,” Rubenstein said. “ So, a lot of those manadatories are standards that we consider very critical that allows us to effectively and professionally run our own facilities.”
An evaluation committee will meet Monday to go through all 68 responses, but the bid details one program in particular the company will have to create at the Lee Center in order to meet West Virginia’s requirements- a rehabilitation program for sex offenders.
CCA expects 20 percent of the inmates received from West Virginia to be sex offenders and says they will implement a three phase program that includes pschyo-educational activities, cognitive restructuring and relapse and reentry prevention. The course will allow 15 inmates to attend one 2 hour session per week.
Still, Rubenstein stressed this is just an option for the state.
After the committee review, an oral on-site interview will take place at the Lee Center in the coming weeks, and if all 68 criteria can be met, then the state will open the envelopes containing CCA’s daily rate for housing prisoners.
Rubenstein said they may not know how much it will cost until early January.
From there, he said it becomes the governor’s decision if it is fiscally responsible to give inmates the option to go out-of-state to be housed and receive treatment, or if there are other temporary options the state can pursue to deal with the overpopulation quickly.