The Hope Scholarship will be expanded to allow all West Virginia students to apply.
The Hope Scholarship will be expanded to allow all West Virginia students to apply.
State Treasurer Riley Moore announced Tuesday that all school-age children residing in West Virginia will be eligible to apply for the program beginning with the 2026-2027 school year.
The scholarship allows the families of K-12 students to receive state funds that can be used for tuition at private schools, homeschool curriculum and other qualifying expenses.
The 2021 law that established the Hope Scholarship Program, House Bill 2013, included a requirement that the program be expanded if the total number of Hope Scholarship students and applicants was less than five percent of the state’s total public school enrollment by July 1, 2024.
According to a press release from Moore’s office, data from the West Virginia Department of Education shows the total number of Hope Scholarship students and applicants (9,980 as of Monday, July 1) is well below 5 percent of the net public school enrollment threshold for the previous school year (12,416).
Moore also serves as the Chairman of the Hope Scholarship Board.
Previously, only children entering kindergarten or enrolled in public school for a qualifying period of time qualified for the Hope Scholarship.
Payments in recent years have averaged more than $4,400 per child, with estimates the Hope Scholarship costs West Virginia public schools up to $21.6 million.
In December it was announced that applications would be accepted year-round, with the amount of money received for the student’s initial year of participation prorated on the time of application.
Campus Carry passed the West Virginia Legislature during the regular session in 2023 and is now in effect at universities and colleges across the state.
A law allowing concealed carry permit holders to carry a firearm onto the campus of any of the state’s higher education institutions goes into effect July 1.
On a morning in late June, Brian Selmeski demonstrated the utility of one of Fairmont State University’s new gun locker rooms on the ground floor of a residence hall. The lockers were set into the wall, just big enough to hold a holstered firearm along with a small amount of ammunition.
“For this side of campus, we’ve installed 24 safes,” Selmeski said. “In the other residence hall, we have 48 gun safes. They are both in rooms that are cinder block construction, they will have electronic access, which will be set by the University Police Department. They have cameras internally so we ensure that we have eyes on these firearms at all times.”
Fairmont State University Director of Housing and Residence Life Jeremiah Kibler opens the door to one of the two residence halls on campus equipped with gun lockers.
Photo by Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Selmeski is the chief of staff at Fairmont State University, where the infrastructure is largely in place for the implementation of Senate Bill 10, commonly known as Campus Carry. The law requires all colleges and universities to allow concealed carry permit holders to have weapons on campus with certain limitations, such as large campus events and residence halls. Hence the lockers.
Selmeski said the university is looking at Campus Carry as an opportunity.
A closeup of some of the stickers used on Fairmont State University’s campus to designate firearm storage and prohibited areas for Campus Carry.
Photo by Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“We have constituencies that have strong opinions, some pro, some con,” he said. “How do we ensure we are ideologically neutral and use this as an opportunity to model the sort of civil discourse that universities are here to help foster and that our country really desperately needs right now?”
After many attempts spanning more than five years, Campus Carry passed the West Virginia Legislature during the regular session in 2023.
Previously, each university decided for themselves whether to allow firearms on campus, with most opting against. West Virginia University President Gordon Gee and Marshall University President Brad Smith published a joint statement during the session in opposition to the law, as did some of the state’s smaller universities.
“We don’t have the luxury of taking an opinion or taking a position on this law,” Selmeski said. “We need especially to model that civil discourse that I keep coming back to, make students who choose to exercise this right feel comfortable. We also need to be cognizant of the fact that it makes some of their student peers uncomfortable. So the last thing we want to do is comply with the letter of the law in a way that creates tensions between students. That’s how we’re approaching the lockers.”
SB 10 included no state funding for its implementation, and at the onset there were concerns about the ultimate cost. Fairmont State estimates they spent just over $13,000 on signage and gun lockers, but that does not include other line items including new cameras and card readers. Marshall University appropriated around $300,000 to prepare for Campus Carry.
Officials at WVU estimate they have spent around $1 million across their three primary campuses to comply with the law.
Gov. Jim Justice signed SB 10 in March of 2023, and schools had the ensuing 16 months to prepare. They’ve used all the time given to them, forming committees and holding campus conversations. WVU’s Board of Governors approved their campus carry rule in April. Fairmont State’s governors approved theirs less than three weeks ago, in June.
Corey Farris is the dean of students at West Virginia University, where students will be able to access gun lockers at residence halls at a cost of $140 per semester.
“I’d say we’re pretty much ready,” Farris said. “I mean, we still have probably a few stickers to put up on some of the offices and then just this last minute communication, just reminding people that July 1 the law takes effect.”
WVU allows single-occupancy offices to be exempt from campus carry. Speaking in front of a gun locker room in a residence hall on WVU’s Morgantown campus, Farris said just over 320 staff members have requested their offices be exempt.
That is significantly higher than the number of students that have requested access to the new lockers so far, of which there are 120 on the Morgantown campus alone.
“We’ve had four students who are living in the residence halls who’ve made that request,” Farris said. “Potomac State zero students have made that request WVU Tech, one student has made that request for a locker.
Most universities exempt on-campus health and mental health clinics from the Campus Carry requirements.
Photo by Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
West Virginia is now the twelfth state to allow campus carry, and officials at all of the schools that WVPB contacted for this story said they had spoken with their counterparts in states like Georgia, Texas and Tennessee that have already implemented their own versions of campus carry. Farris said colleagues at other state schools have told him implementation is the hardest period.
“We weren’t doing a one-time build,” he said. “We’re building this out for many years. We just want to be ready and not underprepared. It’s better to be over prepared.”
Schools across the state will be reassessing their approaches to storage, restrictions and many of the other smaller details of campus carry for years to come.
“Until we get it up and running and tweaking it, no plan survives first contact. So we’ll see how it works out,” said James Terry, director of Public Safety for Marshall University. He said their emphasis will be on personal responsibility.
“We put the responsibility on the permit holder,” Terry said. “If they’re gonna live in the residence hall, they have to lease a gun safe from a vendor, which we already have. We did not build a safe room or gun room.”
Terry said education is just as much for concealed carry permit holders on campus, as well as for the rest of the population.
“The big cultural shift for us will be, in my opinion, just educating the public on what concealed carry is,” Terry said. “You read the law, it has to be concealed at all times. But if it prints on the shirt, it’s still concealed if it’s underneath that shirt, you know, so we’re, we’re talking about our responses to that.”
That is one of the intangibles that schools will have to address moving forward, especially the perceptions around having firearms on campus and in classrooms. Selmeski said the gap between being safe and feeling safe on campus can create tension.
“Statistically, campus carry does not increase the risk of gun violence on campus,” he said. “That does absolutely nothing to make people feel safe. It’s a number, it’s not their lived reality. So how do we address the lived reality? We, we have open fora, we have robust communication, we make the complex more simple so folks can understand it.”
Whether the school communities are ready or not, the schools themselves have the necessary infrastructure in place.
On this West Virginia Morning, there’s a deadline looming for business owners across the state. Tens of thousands of them still haven’t filed their annual reports as required by state law. Assistant News Director Maria Young sat down with Secretary of State Mac Warner – who’s hoping all of them get the job done by midnight Sunday night – just, not all at once.
On this West Virginia Morning, there’s a deadline looming for business owners across the state. Tens of thousands of them still haven’t filed their annual reports as required by state law. Assistant News Director Maria Young sat down with Secretary of State Mac Warner – who’s hoping all of them get the job done by midnight Sunday night – just, not all at once.
Also, in this show, 50 years ago, June 27, 2024, the Kanawha County Board of Education set off a chapter of the nation’s culture wars as it debated whether to purchase a controversial series of new textbooks. The meeting room was packed, and emotions were hot. Us & Them Host Trey Kay produced an award-winning documentary about the textbook controversy and provides this reflection.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Chris Schulz produced this episode.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
Secretary of State Mac Warner details what business owners need to file — and when — to stay in compliance with state law.
There’s a deadline looming for businesses across the state, but tens of thousands of them still haven’t filed their annual reports as required by state law.
Maria Young sat down this week with Secretary of State Mac Warner – who’s hoping all of them get the job done by Sunday night – just not all at once.
Maria: Thank you for joining us, Mr. Secretary. Let’s start with – for those who don’t own their own businesses and don’t know – what exactly are these reports?
Warner: This is a requirement by state code that there’ll be a repository of all the businesses in the state. This is for our citizens. They want to find an address or find out who an officer is of a particular business or corporation, there may be a lawsuit and you want to file service or process on a business. This is the one place you can go. It’s our website, www.sos.gov. And so we keep track of just about 150,000, businesses, nonprofits and charities.
Maria: It doesn’t sound like, you know, these are not like paying your taxes. So there’s not potentially, or arguably, a benefit to waiting until the last minute.
Warner: There’s no benefit. Just, the deadline comes up at the end of June. So we are in the last week of this. But if you miss this deadline, which is midnight on Sunday, then we have to impose a $50 late fee. And until you pay that, then you’re in non compliance. And the significance of that is, let’s say you’re in a business deal, say closing in on some real estate or getting a bank loan, and they want to know that you are in compliance, you are a legitimate, legitimate business in West Virginia. They will check that website. If it shows non-compliance, then the red flags go up.
Maria: Sure. So you mentioned roughly 150,000 businesses registered across the state with your office. How many have filed at this point?
Warner: We just went over 60 percent, just in the last day or so. And that is, like I said, slightly better than last year. So we’re not too concerned. But we, still, 40 percent of businesses still have to report.
Maria: That’s an awful lot of companies out there. So if everybody waits until 11:58 p.m. on Sunday, June the 30th, is that going to be a problem?
Warner: It may be. That’s why it’s good that we’re talking about it, so people do it as they think about it this week, as they hear about it.
Maria: If you’re doing business with somebody and happen to check and see that they’re out of compliance, should that be a red flag?
Warner: It should be a red flag, and you should then ask them why they’re not in compliance. And that’s what we want to avoid. The one thing that I would like to bring up is, there is no need for a third party involved. You don’t need to pay somebody else to file this for you. It’s like you can pump your own gas, why pay somebody $100? So you can do it yourself. What we’ve typically seen year after year is a company, typically out of state, that sends you a letter that looks very official, like it’s a government letter when it’s really isn’t. And then they charge $125 to do it for you. And we just want to, it’s not necessarily a scam, but it’s, it’s taking advantage of people. And so I would say, don’t be taken advantage of. Just go right online, fill it out yourself and join the 98 percent of the people that do do it online. If you want to do it by paper you can fill out the paperwork and send it in. But it’s kind of like an absentee ballot. It has to be postmarked by June 30. And if it’s not in, the late fee will apply.
Maria: Sure. That sounds relatively routine and not terribly complicated and you’re just hoping folks will, you know, check that box and get on to their next list of things to do, is that right?
Based on the order, the proceeds would be used to pay Caroleng Investments, a Caribbean investment company to which Justice owes at least $10 million.
Half a dozen companies owned by the family of Gov. Jim Justice could be sold to satisfy a longstanding debt, according to a court ruling last week.
In a ruling filed June 20 in U.S. District Court in Delaware, Judge Richard G. Andrews ordered the sale of six Justice companies. Based on the order, the proceeds would be used to pay Caroleng Investments, a Caribbean investment company to which Justice owes at least $10 million.
Caroleng is a subsidiary of Russian mining company Mechel, owned by oligarch Igor Zyuzin.
Justice sold Bluestone Resources to Mechel in 2009, then bought it back in 2015 for a fraction of the sale price.
Justice was asked on Wednesday in a virtual briefing with reporters about the court’s ruling.
“You also need to remember that the Russians – the Russians – bought Bluestone from our family, and then turned it into a god-awful mess you have ever seen in the world,” he said. “And it literally would have caused so much harm to a lot of great West Virginians, our environment, so many different things, taxes, and on and on and on, that we’ve taken care of.”
The six companies in the Delaware ruling are Bluestone Mineral, National Resources, Bluestone Coal Sales, Nufac Mining Company, Frontier Coal Company and Kentucky Fuel Corp.
The Delaware court awarded Caroleng a total of $10.1 million in 2021, including $8.4 million, plus $1.7 million in interest. Interest has continued to accrue since then, and “almost the entire amount currently remains unpaid,” Andrews wrote.
Andrews gave the parties 30 days to agree on an initial sale order, which would provide notice of the sale to other creditors and appoint a receiver to take control of the companies and a broker to conduct the sale.
Justice-owned companies are entangled in myriad lawsuits with multiple creditors involving tens of millions of dollars in debt.
Justice is the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate.
The clock is ticking for tens of thousands of business owners in West Virginia who still haven’t filed their annual reports.
Whether you want to do business with them – or file a lawsuit – anyone trying to reach a West Virginia business, charity or nonprofit can typically go to the Secretary of State’s website.
They’re all required, under state code, to file updated and accurate reports each year.
“This is for our citizens, they want to find an address or find out who an officer is of a particular business or corporation,” said Secretary of State Mac Warner.
“But it’s also for out-of-state. Say somebody, there may be a lawsuit and you want to file service or process on a business. This is the one place you can go” to get that information, Warner added.
But the deadline to file those reports is 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, and so far, just over 60 percent of the businesses in West Virginia have checked that box and paid the $25 fee.
With nearly 150,000 businesses across the state, that leaves nearly 60,000 that still need to file online.
“If you want to do it by paper, you can fill out the paperwork and send it in. But it’s kind of like an absentee ballot – has to be postmarked by June 30,” said Warner.
Those who miss the deadline will be fined a $50 late fee.
Warner said they’ll also be listed as not-in-compliance – which could affect their business activities.
“Let’s say you’re in a business deal, say closing on some real estate or getting a bank loan. And they want to know that you are in compliance. …They will check that website. And if it shows non-compliance, then the red flags go up. ‘Why aren’t they in compliance?’” said Warner.
He added that some third parties will send out an official-looking letter offering to handle the paperwork for a fee of $125.
Warner said it’s not exactly a scam but it’s taking advantage of people who can just as easily file the same information themselves.
