Tag: Government

One in five West Virginians seeing reduction in food assistance benefits

An automatic reduction to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, will begin taking effect today, cutting benefits for more than 47 million people across the country. 

West Virginians rely heavily on this assistance program, with about 20 percent of the population enrolled.

A Kanawha County man who is already struggling to provide for his family said this national cut means he will have to make even harder choices in the near future. 

                                                         

Rick Hodges is a single dad raising his 7-year-old daughter in Cabin Creek. Hodges was a subcontractor for a cable company for 17 years, but was hurt on the job in 2001. Now, he relies on disability and food stamps to provide for his family.

“I don’t eat a lot of times. I just make her food,” said Hodges. ” I might eat what she don’t eat. In fact, I just did that this week one day.”

This week, Hodges received notice from the state Department of Health and Human Resources that his benefits were being cut from $79 to $59 a month.

“That’s $20 less food I can buy for my daughter. That’s $20 I’ll somehow have to come up with out of my check and that means not paying the sewer bill,” said Hodges. “If you don’t pay your sewer bill, they want to cut your water off so that really puts you in a bind. That’s a large cut. That’s a very large cut.”

But he’s not alone. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, nationwide will be cut by more than $5 billion Friday, affecting more than 14 percent of U.S. households, as a temporary boost when 2009 federal stimulus package automatically expires.

For West Virginia, that means the average family of three’s benefits will be cut by 29 dollars or 16 meals a month based on numbers from the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Executive Director of the Healthy Kids and Families Coalition Stephen Smith says about 350 thousand working West Virginians will feel the impact first hand.

“Poverty doesn’t look like someone who is not working and relying on government,” said Smith.

“Poverty looks like, especially in West Virginia, a majority are people who are working sometimes two or three jobs and making minimum wage which everyone knows isn’t enough money to get by on and those are a lot of the people who are receiving SNAP benefits to try to fill the gap at the end of every month.”

In West Virginia, the program is funded exclusively through federal monies. SNAP Senior Policy Specialist Marsha Stowers said the budget will shrink by nearly $2.7 million this month.

“The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and it was temporary. It increased net benefits across the board in efforts to stimulate the economy and the law was set to expire November 1, 2013. So, as of right now, the state doesn’t have anything they’re going to add,” she said.

Communities, however, are working to fill the gap left by federal funding. Smith said over the past few decades, as the economy has worsened, charities and food banks have started to step up to help families make ends meet.

Even with the 40 to 50 thousand new programs created across the country in the past few years, the number of people who are food insecure has only increased, showing that what they can do is not enough.

“It is absolutely clear that those cannot fill the gap and we’ve seen that in West Virginia,” said Smith. “Talk to anyone who is running a backpack program or a feeding program, they see increasingly more and more working families showing up and they’re still not making the difference they need to.”

Hodges said he’s had that experience, traveling from food bank to food bank in southern West Virginia just to make it through the month.

As for what he thinks lawmakers should be doing when it comes to SNAP benefits:

 “I would tell them thanks for the stimulus that we did have, but there’s going to be children that go hungry because of this cut. They have to look themselves in the mirror and know that there are kids going to bed because of cuts that are going to be hungry and crying and sick for school the next morning,” said Hodges.

Hodges said the reduction in the program will be a challenge for him, but he isn’t giving up.

“No matter what they throw at us, we have to make it. We can’t just blink our eyes and disappear from the world. We have to somehow find a way.”

Campaign targets pseudoephedrine regulation in W.Va.

An industry trade group has launched a campaign in West Virginia opposing legislation that would require prescriptions for medications containing pseudoephedrine.
 
     Pseudoephedrine is also used illegally to make methamphetamine.
 
     The Consumer Healthcare Products Association began running ads this week on Charleston-area news websites. The group also has set up a website called Stop Meth, Not Meds, a Facebook page and a Twitter account.
 
     Association spokeswoman Elizabeth Funderburke tells the Charleston Gazette that families rely on cold, sinus and allergy medications containing pseudoephedrine. She says the association provides a platform for them to voice opposition to prescription legislation.
 
     House Health Committee Chairman Don Perdue and Nicholas County Sen. Greg Tucker have said they plan to introduce prescription-only bills for pseudoephedrine.
 

State working to increase security at some juvenile facilities

A judge called the inner workings of the Gene Spadaro Juvenile Center “concerning” after receiving a report from a court monitor for the Adjudicated Juvenile Rehabilitation Review Commission.

The Commission was established in June of 2011 to examine the operations and programs of the Division of Juvenile Services facilities across the state. Cindy Largent-Hill is a member of the commission and visited the Spadaro Juvenile Center in Fayette County Monday.

Judge Omar Aboulhosn, Marty Wright, who serves as counsel for DJS, and Lydia Milnes and Dan Hedges of the public interest law firm Mountain State Justice received copies of the report and discussed its findings during a hearing in Kanawha County Circuit Court Tuesday.

“When I read this report, when I talked with my monitor about it, I was kind of surprised to hear the staff being so vocal, saying please help us. We’re afraid someone’s going to get hurt,” Aboulhosn said.

“To hear that they’re afraid the residents are going to take over the facility? That’s pretty stunning,” he said.

When the state decided to close the Salem Industrial Youth Home and, subsequently, Aboulhosn ordered the closure of the Harriet B. Jones Treatment Center this summer on the same campus, juvenile residents were transferred to facilities around the state.

Those with behavioral or mental health issues, called wellness residents, were transferred to the James H. “Tiger” Morton Juvenile Center in Kanawha County and convicted sex offenders were relocated to the Sam Perdue Juvenile Center in Mercer County.

In order to make room for the residents at those facilities, others were shifted between centers and now, Stephanie Bond, acting director of DJS, said staff members at Spadaro have to deal with new types of offenders.

“The staff is used to having lower end status offenders. Our goal was to put lower end detention kids there, but due to the crowding at our more secure detention centers we haven’t been able to move them as we wanted to do,” Bond told the judge.

Not all juvenile facilities in the state have the same security features. Higher end detention centers, like the Lorrie Yeager, Jr., Center in Parkersburg, W.Va., are called hardware secure facilities, meaning they have additional security measures at entrances and fences with barbed wire, while Spadaro is a staff secure center meant for less violent offenders and therefore doesn’t have the same security features.

“The building is not equipped appropriately and staff members know it will take time,” Hill told Aboulhosn, “but they are in dire need now.”

Bond said the state is working to upgrade the Spadaro Center to a hardware secure level, but it is taking time.

Aside from the staff learning to handle a new type of resident and upgrading security, Bond said three residents at Spadaro were acting as ring leaders, egging on their peers. Those residents are being transferred to more secure facilities, including Yeager and the Chick Buckbee Center in Hampshire County.

Wright, however, adds this is problem staff members are seeing at facilities across the state. Over the past year the court has ordered procedural changes within the DJS system and Wright says residents are starting to feel empowered.

“We noticed a trend starting to happen where there’s a belief that you can’t touch me, you can’t do anything to me,” Wright said. “I’ll go complain and get you all in trouble type atmosphere from the residents and now we’re starting to see the matriculation of that mentality going to the extreme.”

Wright told the court it is time to bring some concreteness to the matter.

“We need to bring some calm to the situation and let things start taking its course and get some finality in terms of what these are the rules,” Wright said. “Let’s start implementing them so residents see them.”

Aboulhosn agreed. He has given DJS and Mountain State two weeks to finalize an agreement on the handling of due process rights, education and recreation.

From there, he said he’ll ask counsel to submit its final fact findings and decide how to appropriately dismiss the case.
 

Environmentalists offer details of coal ash ruling

A federal judge issued a memorandum Tuesday in a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s failure to finalize federal coal ash…

A federal judge issued a memorandum Tuesday in a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s failure to finalize federal coal ash regulations.

United States District Judge Reggie B. Walton issued a ruling giving the Environmental Protection Agency 60 days to name how long it will take to review and revise coal ash regulations. 

Coal ash, also referred to as fly ash, is a byproduct of burning coal.  Anything that doesn’t burn up, usually inorganic matter in the coal like shale, is left behind in boilers and is usually disposed of in landfills and settlement ponds.

Power plants in the U.S. produce about 140 million tons of the ash each year and according to the EPA, about 1,000 active coal ash storage sites exist across the nation. West Virginia is home to more than twenty sites.

Judge Walton’s ruling is the outcome of the lawsuit filed in early 2012 by nearly a dozen environmental groups challenging the EPA’s inaction to revise coal ash regulations.

In a conference call senior administrative counsel at Earthjustice, Lisa Evans, spoke about the court’s decision. She referred to the coal ash disaster that occurred in late 2008 when over a billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge burst through the dam of a waste pond, located 60 feet above the Emory River at TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee. The waste covered 300 acres below the plant, destroying homes, poisoning watersheds. The event provided impetus for many groups to demand new regulations for the disposal of the power plant waste.

“EPA is now required to come forward with a proposed schedule for completion of the ongoing coal ash rule making within 60 days,” Evans said. “Consequently on or shortly after the 5th anniversary of the Kingston Coal Ash disaster, EPA must finally announce its schedule for new coal ash rules. Once approved by this court the schedule will be enforceable against the agency should it delay again. Thus today’s order creates a clear path to obtaining a binding deadline for the much delayed and critically needed coal ash rule.”

But the ruling flies in the face of the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act, passed in the House this past summer.  West Virginia’s Republican Congressman David McKinley introduced the bill in an attempt to revise coal ash regulations, but leaves individual states in charge of mandating rules. The act which hasn’t yet come up for a vote in the Senate limits the EPA’s authority to regulate the waste and, most importantly, disallows the EPA from labeling the waste a hazard.

“The bill that passed through the house would take away EPA’s authority to issue this rule that is the subject of the opinion,” Evans said. “What the house bill was attempting to do was prevent the EPA from issuing this rule. So in 60 days we will see the proposed schedule for EPA’s issuance of the rule. And we hope that EPA will be able to proceed to issue that rule without interference by Congress.”

During a press conference environmentalists speculated the EPA will project a date within 2014 to issue their final ruling on any new regulations.

Due process, education, recreation focuses of DJS hearing

Judge Omar Aboulhosn heard what may be the last evidence in the case filed by Mountain State Justice against the Division of Juvenile Services.

Mountain State asked three juvenile residents to testify in an evidentiary hearing Tuesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court.

B.M., identified only by his initials for the court, is a juvenile resident of the Sam Perdue Juvenile Center in Princeton. He is one of the 25 residents relocated after Aboulhosn order the closure of the Harriet B. Jones Treatment Center in Salem over the summer.

B.M. testified the Perdue facility staff follows their meal schedules about 60 percent of the time, serving things like pepperoni rolls, chips and prepackaged cakes for dinner when their cook is off or on sick leave.

S.Y. is an 18-year-old resident of the Donald R. Kuhn Juvenile Center in Boone County and has been in the custody of DJS for over a year. S.Y. testified to support a grievance he filed when the residents of his wing were locked in their rooms for almost two hours. He said residents were told it was a punishment for an individual’s behavior in the cafeteria.

L.B. is a 19-year-old resident of the Northern Regional Detention Center in Wheeling where she said their indoor rec room has only 3 or 4 working exercise machines and she currently has no access to additional vocational training because she has already received her high school diploma. The center now only offers high school or GED classes.

These residents were all called on to testify about the quality of life for juveniles in the custody of DJS. Their issues became concerns not just of the public interest group, but also of the state, as the two are working on the details of an agreement due to Aboulhosn in two weeks.

The Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety released a draft that starts with new policies. These policies are to ensure residence have due process rights when they file grievances and have disciplinary hearings.

“Previously, we were using the notice of charges form. We felt strongly that that met what was in the court order because it gave a brief summary or description of the charges,” said Stephanie Bond, acting director of DJS. “Mr. Hedges and Miss. Milnes disagreed with that.”

Dan Hedges and Lydia Milnes serve as counsel for Mountain State.

Bond said DJS will now give residents a full copy of their incident reports at least 24 hours prior to their hearing. Hearing officers will be required to give residents a written decision afterward.

Also as part of the agreement, DJS is seeking five new employees in their central office in Charleston who will travel the state to hold these disciplinary hearings.

“What we have been doing is trying to find a person who is a non-direct care staff to conduct the hearings to keep it as fair as possible,” Bond said, “and in our smaller facilities that’s almost impossible because everybody has contact with the kids, therefore, we have a maintenance worker, but, nonetheless, we are going to make these separate positions.”

The team will not be tied to any one facility with the goal of providing an unbiased handling of complaints.

As for the concerns brought forward by residents in the hearing, nutritionally Bond said facility meals are certified by the Office of Child Nutrition in the state Department of Education and meet national guidelines.

She said lockdowns occur during necessary times to ensure the safety and security of residents, but happen far less often than a year ago.

But the educational opportunities for female residents are a more difficult task to approach. Bond said she is working closely with the Department of Education who provides the academic and vocational training at all state facilities.

The department has completed the process of converting two rooms into classrooms at Northern. They are also taking applications for and hiring teachers to provide business administration classes for residents with diplomas or GEDs. Similar classes are in the works for other facilities in the state as well.

Aboulhosn has also asked counsel to begin working on their final reports reviewing the changes DJS has made over the past year and where they need to go in the future. He said this includes continuing to work with the court monitor or hiring an internal monitor to observe the ten state juvenile centers.    
 

Rockefeller, Manchin eyeing CONSOL mine sale, Murray safety

West Virginia’s two U.S. senators say they’ll be watching closely to see how Ohio-based Murray Energy treats safety and the workforce of the five CONSOL Energy mines it’s buying.
 
     Senators Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller have requested a meeting with Murray Energy to discuss the transition.
 
     The companies announced the deal Monday for the sale of the Blacksville No. 2, Loveridge, McElroy, Robinson Run and Shoemaker mines.
 
     Pennsylvania-based CONSOL said it wants to shift resources to natural gas development.
 
     Manchin says CONSOL is an industry leader in mine safety, and he hopes Murray Energy will also put miners first.
 
     Rockefeller says Murray Energy must make protecting workers and retirees a priority.
 
     Murray Energy says it operates safe mines but cannot yet comment on its plans for the workforce.

Exit mobile version