Tag: Government

Developer of troubled ACA website has W.Va. computer contract

A company involved in the problematic federal health care exchange website has a contract to design a system to manage West Virginia state government…

A company involved in the problematic federal health care exchange website has a contract to design a system to manage West Virginia state government accounts.
 
     CGI Group subsidiary CGI Federal is the developer of the complex U.S. government website that’s been hit by technical problems, resulting in long waits for Americans to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
 
     CGI Federal is a subsidiary of Montreal-based CGI Group Inc. The Charleston Gazette reports CGI Group’s Public Sector group is handling an overhaul of the state government’s software system.
 
     The state awarded a contract to CGI Group in 2011 to integrate state agencies’ budgeting, financial management and human resources operations. The new system, called OASIS, is expected to be in operation by 2015.

Federal cuts eliminate Tucker Co. Head Start

West Virginia’s Head Start preschool program is no longer available in every county due to federal budget cuts, state officials said Tuesday.

The federally funded program helps prepare low-income children for elementary school and also provides them with meals and health care. The programs are a legacy of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1960s war on poverty.

But because of automatic federal spending cuts known as sequestration, 461 classroom spots were eliminated in West Virginia. There were 8,075 children enrolled in Head Start in West Virginia in the 2012 fiscal year, according to federal figures.

The cuts were put in place after Congress and the White House failed to reach agreement two years ago on a plan to cut the federal deficit. Funding for the program is provided in the form of grants to 21 local community organizations.

Traci Dalton, director of West Virginia’s Head Start Collaboration Office, told lawmakers during a legislative interim meeting that the cuts meant that the program had to be eliminated in Tucker County. Previously, all 55 West Virginia counties had Head Start programs in them.

Nationwide, more than 57,000 spots for children were eliminated. Dalton said West Virginia is better off than some other states because it offers a universal preschool program for 4-year-old children, and some of those who would have gone to Head Start likely enrolled in that program.

“We’re glad they’re being served somewhere, however there are services that are being lost to those families,” she said. “The health component, I mean, we have staff that are driving children to the dentist, taking families and making sure they’re getting their immunizations. … Those are the types of services that are being lost.”

But Dalton also warned that another round of sequestration would likely mean more cuts. So far, 80 Head Start positions have been eliminated, she said.

West Virginia Head Start programs receive about $55 million, down from $58 million before sequestration.

Dalton did not have an estimate on exactly how many children would be impacted or in which counties if sequestration continues. She said the average cost for each child enrolled in Head Start in West Virginia is about $7,200.

Dalton encouraged lawmakers to contact the state’s congressional delegation to get funding restored.

Can the DOH take over the state turnpike?

The governor, the legislature, even a special commission on highways are all looking for ways to fund state roads. A select committee on Infrastructure is trying to find ways to save money and increase efficiencies by combining the Division of Highways and the governing authority of the state’s Turnpike, but simply combining the two would create serious legal implications for the state.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 55 requested a study to consolidate the operations and maintenance responsibilities of the state Parkways Authority and the Division of Highways in the hopes of saving money by finding efficiencies.

The Parkways Authority is currently a separate entity responsible only for the 88 miles of turnpike through southern West Virginia. In 2019 when the bond debt on the road is paid off, state law dictates the Commissioner of Highways will decide if the condition of the roadway is good enough for the state to assume control free of tolls.

But state lawmakers want to know, could we save money if we just did that now? The answer, in short, is no. But of course it’s not that simple.

“That would be a problem,” General Manager of the Parkways Authority Greg Barr told legislators Tuesday. “That would violate the impairment of contract clause in the Constitution.”

Barr said should the state choose to consolidate them under the DOH before 2019, it would violate the bond contract.

“When the contract was entered into to sell the bonds by the Parkways Authority, there was representation to the bond holders that the Parkways Authority would be an independent agency that would oversee the maintenance and upkeep of [the Turnpike] and take care of the responsibilities for the bond holders.”

Senator Bill Cole of Mercer County suggested integrating the agency into the DOH, but keeping the Parkways Authority name and governing board to align with the contract. The debt left on the bond then becomes the state’s.

“I would think that if I held that bond, the state of West Virginia might be a little bit more substantive than an authority within the state of West Virginia,” Cole said. “Is that really a technicality that we’re talking about that isn’t a big deal, paying a couple hundred dollars to pay a name and get some approval?”

“In this case it would be a big deal,” responded Brian Helmick, bond counsel for the authority.

Helmick said it is unconstitutional for the state to incur any debt.

“There’s a Constitutional provision that doesn’t allow the state to incur debt without a vote of the people, and when we say a vote of the people, we actually ask the people in west Virginia to vote on an amendment to the Constitution allowing for certain debt to be incurred,” he said. “That has been done a few times over the years, primarily for DOH highway projects.”

So, just pay it off early. Pay off the debt and assume control of the roadway. That’s what Delegate Nancy Guthrie of Kanawha County asked of Helmick. How much would it take to pay it off now?

Helmick said there is about $55 million in principle left on the bond, but you can’t just pay it off when you have funds. The state would incur prepayment penalties to the tune of $7.5 million.

It appears the Parkways Authority is contractually obligated to not just remain intact, but remain in control of the maintenance and collection of tolls on the Turnpike.

But of course, in 2019, all of that could change. The state could decide to re-bond the road, keep the tolls and use the money to fund other road projects, or at least a dozen other scenarios all being considered by the governor, the legislature and the Blue Ribbon Commission on Highways.
 

Agriculture Dept. still deciding site of hog farm to feed inmates

A West Virginia Department of Agriculture spokesman says the agency hasn’t yet selected a site for a hog farm that would help feed state inmates.

     Last week, Mingo County Revelopment Authority director Steve Kominar told the authority’s board that the county had been chosen as a site for the hog farm.
 
     Department of Agriculture spokesman Butch Antolini said Tuesday that Mingo County is one of several locations being looked at in the southern coalfields.
 
     Agriculture Commissioner Walk Helmick says the state buys more than 100,000 pounds of pork annually from outside the state to feed inmates in state prisons. That doesn’t include regional jails and juvenile facilities.
 
     Helmick says taxpayer dollars used to feed and house inmates should be spent in West Virginia.

Audit says state should focus on safety of Child Protective Service workers

An audit of the Bureau for Children and Families says the Department of Health and Human Resources needs to focus on the safety of Child Protective Service workers making home visits throughout the state.

Legislative auditors presented their review of the bureau to lawmakers with six recommendations on how to improve safety for workers monitoring cases and conducting investigations outside of their county offices.

Those include:

1. Increase focus on worker safety and create a culture that emphasizes worker safety through creating a central and uniform focus on safety.

2.    Avoid any further delays in providing personal safety devices for all CPS workers and develop a statewide, uniform practice for their use.

3.    Identify areas of weak/nonexistent mobile phone coverage and explore the use of other communication technology.

4.    Provide agency mobile phones to all field workers and require their use for state business conducted from remote locations.

5.    Provide methamphetamine safety training and establish stringent methamphetamine safety guidelines for social workers.

6.    Require annual safety training.

As auditors explained their recommendations to members of the Joint Committee on Government Organization, they explained the bureau has been aware of communication issues during home visits since a CPS worker was killed on the job five years ago, but have yet to make any changes to the devices workers are carrying with them.

Bureau Commissioner Nancy Exline said over the next few months, they will be testing a variety of communication devices including satellite phones, life alert type badges and cell phone boosters to determine which technologies will be useful in different areas of the state.

“We’re currently doing a complete inventory of all of our cell phones, the technology they have, where they work, where they don’t work, where we need booster,” she said. “It is my hope that in December we can begin to make decisions about what devices we need to have where and which ones are the best to use for all of our field staff.”

Legislators asked Exline to return with a report in December detailing the devices that will be used by CPS workers and how additional safety procedures have been implemented as suggested by the audit.
 

W.Va. looking to out of state prisons to help reduce overcrowding

West Virginia’s Division of Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein told lawmakers the state is considering sending inmates to out of state facilities to curb overcrowding issues.

So far, two facilities are interested in taking inmates, one in Tennessee and one in Texas.

Rubenstein assured legislators on the Legislative Oversight Committee on Regional Jails and Correctional Facilities Monday while the state does have a Constitutional provision that bans sending inmates out of state involuntarily, it is within the law if they volunteer to be transferred.

Rubenstein said sending inmates who should be in prison, but are held in regional jails to these out of state facilities will give them earlier access to the rehabilitation programs they need.
 
“I’ve just always looked at it as a temporary solution which is again the belief being that if an individual can take advantage of programming and treatment right off the bat, see the parole board for the first time, have that met that they have a very good chance of being paroled,” he told lawmakers.
 
Out of state prisons that bid on the contract with West Virginia must be able to provide all of the same programming to inmates they would receive in state.

The bids will be opened November 5 for out of state locations looking to take in populations from West Virginia. From there, Rubenstein said the state will decide if it’s fiscally possible to move forward with the plan.
 

Exit mobile version