Roger Hanshaw Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Budget Correction Plans Increase After Clawback Averted

House Speaker Roger Hanshaw said the surplus budget revenue pool is in the $700 to $800 million range.

Now that a near half billion-dollar federal clawback is off the table, plans to fatten a skinny state budget are ramping up.

Gov. Jim Justice announced last Friday that West Virginia will not face a clawback of $465 million in COVID-19 money from the U.S. Department of Education. The news alleviated concerns raised by state lawmakers during the final days of the legislative session in March.

Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said leaders from the executive and legislative branches have continued to regularly meet on setting budget priorities for an expected May special session.

“Before we meet in May,” Hanshaw said. “We will have made some tentative decisions on which of the various spending proposals that we had during the regular session will actually expect to pass into law and then go into our May interim period intending to do those things.”

Hanshaw said budget priorities begin with fulfilling certain ongoing state obligations.

“Like our public defender system, for example,” Hanshaw said. “It’s one of those every year where we have to pass a supplemental appropriation that lets us continue to meet our obligations of the justice system, funding the public defenders at a level that meets constitutional expectations.

Hanshaw said the surplus revenue pool is in the $700 to $800 million range. He said the budget meetings including state health officials highlight the priority issue of restoring several million dollars in health-related Medicaid funds.

“How do we make sure we’re maximizing federal dollars?” Hanshaw said. How do we make sure we’re maximizing our matching funds? We just had to delay it by about a month and a half this year.”

Hanshaw says legislators are watching possible federal changes in childcare funding to assess state budget input.

There’s a federal U.S. Department of Labor rule,” Hanshaw said. “I believe it is working its way through the federal system right now, that will have a big impact on that. A rule that would compel funding for childcare agencies on the basis of paying on an enrollment versus attendance model. We need some finality on that from the federal government before we can be certain just exactly how much we can allocate and the manner in which we allocated.”

In his State of the State Address, Justice proposed $50 million for a West Virginia State University agricultural lab. Hanshaw said that has been a state government priority for a long time. He expects it to be addressed in the Special Session.

“We need to get the Department of Agriculture in some new facilities,” Hanshaw said. “That’s well known. For many years, we’ve worked with the commissioner and with the President of WVSU, President Cage and his team there. That’s a shared priority for everybody.”

Hanshaw also expects long term EMS viability, and pay raises for non-uniformed corrections workers to be on Justice’s special session call, likely to be during held the May 19-21 interim legislative meetings

“It makes sense that we would utilize the time that people have already allocated to be here in the Capitol,” Hanshaw said.

State Natural Disaster Emergency Funding Becomes Political Squabble

Gov. Jim Justice said the opinions of some legislative leaders that he can use some of the $85 million Civil Contingency Fund for emergency relief are wrong. Those leaders say otherwise.

Gov. Jim Justice said the opinions of some legislative leaders that he can use some of the $85 million Civil Contingency Fund for emergency relief are wrong. In a press release, Justice said the fund allows no appropriations for emergencies.

“These funds are to be utilized for purposes outlined by the legislature during the appropriation process,” Justice said in the release. “Such as economic development, water and infrastructure projects, higher education capital improvements, and, most recently, to maintain our jails and prisons.”

Justice said in his weekly media briefing Wednesday that he will place on the call for the upcoming special session the proposed and rejected $50 million allocation to the West Virginia Flood Resiliency Trust Fund. That proposal was removed from the budget bill in the last days of the session.

“Instead of pulling together and hoarding back money, for some pet project somewhere, we need to take care of our people,” Justice said. “It’s the people’s money. It’s not the legislators’ money. It is frivolous for us to not create a bucket to where we can help folks,”

Senate Finance Committee Chair Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, said the bucket is already there. He said Justice may be ignorant of the fact that $7 million of the Civil Contingency Fund can be used at his discretion for natural disaster relief

“There’s discretionary spending there,” Tarr said. “And as everybody has witnessed across the state, he uses discretionary authority for spending on a lot of things that had nothing to do with emergency status.”

Tarr said even if the legislature had approved the $50 million trust fund allocation, as a surplus item, that money could not be used until the end of fiscal 2025.

“The flood fund that he’s referencing is a prevention effort,” Tarr said. ”So it’s not as if it was constructed by the legislature as a state form of FEMA”.

Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said there may be a misunderstanding here. He says there’s money available in Fiscal Year 2024 accounts to deal with natural disasters.

“The law as we understand it, provides the governor during a state of emergency the ability to move some money between accounts and utilize money to respond to natural disasters,” Hanshaw said. I just want to make clear that the budget process that we follow is the normal course of business. Nothing that we did or were asked to do during the regular session, or the last couple of months, had anything to do with the current natural disaster that we faced.”

Hanshaw said the executive branch can use its inherent expertise to take action.

“We don’t and shouldn’t be in the business of managing the day-to-day affairs of how the executive branch agencies respond to natural disasters,” Hanshaw said “They actually do that very well. They have a good track record here of how we get emergency responders out quickly to those people that need help. And it’s never been a problem in the past. I don’t think it should be a problem now.”

Justice said with the many challenges of obtaining federal FEMA help, the legislature needs to help create that natural disaster relief funding bucket.

“The problem with FEMA is they want a great number of people that are affected, or a great amount of property damage and everything that’s affected,” Justice said. “We ought to create the bucket and then we’re going to have to continue to replenish the bucket as we go forward. There’s too many instances where really, really good people across this state that we can’t get them qualified for FEMA, but we could still have an emergency fund to be able to help them.”

Taiwan Partnership, First Responder Mental Health Highlight House Happenings

Global partnerships and international politics took center stage in the House of Delegates Thursday, along with a continuing legislative effort to address the mental health crisis among the state’s first responders.

West Virginia And Taiwan

Stepping down from his podium, Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, read House Resolution 9, reaffirming the longstanding sisterhood partnership between West Virginia and Taiwan. The state and the embattled Asian nation have worked together as trade and cultural partners since 1980.

Taiwan delegation member Robin Chang spoke of the strong West Virginia/Taiwan relationship through trade, economic ties and cooperation in education and related fields, including a united stand supporting global democracy.

“Even as our democracy thrives, the people of Taiwan continue to face harassment and aggression from our neighbor across the Taiwan Strait,” Chang said. “That is why it has been so encouraging and important for the 23 million Taiwanese people to have received the strong support of our friends here in West Virginia, and the United States.”

Delegates back from a recent mission to Taiwan talked about Taiwan’s hill and hollow topography being similar to West Virginia. However, they said they were getting 5G broadband everywhere. Delegates said Taiwan’s tunnel, bridge and rail infrastructure was exemplary. Now, legislators are studying Taiwan’s related laws and regulations to see how West Virginia can match up.

Hanshaw said it’s a win-win situation to maintain strong relations with a country fighting to remain independent and free.

“Taiwan is a democratic country,” Hanshaw said. “When we talk about growing and cultivating export markets for West Virginia’s businesses and creating new opportunities to grow our state’s economy, we know that the export markets are how we’re going to do that. And if we want to do business in Asia, we want to do business with people whose values are aligned with ours outright.”

First Responder Mental Health

House Bill 5241 requires the Insurance Commissioner to audit PEIA claims for the treatment of PTSD of first responders. The commissioner is also charged with filing an annual report.

The state EMS Department is among many working to address a mental health crisis among first responders.

Del. Heather Tully, R-Nicholas, sponsored the audit bill. She said first responders from her county and elsewhere told her their PEIA insurance mental health claims were consistently rejected.

“A lot of times in PEIA, they were seen to be denied or they were delayed,” Tully said. “As a result of this, we wanted to make sure the insurance commissioner had no oversight over PEIA claims related to this whatsoever, unlike the insurance commissioner being able to audit private insurance. The end goal is to really see how we can work forward and see if we can’t get coverage for our first responders.”

The first responder PTSD audit bill passed the House 90-0 Wednesday evening and was sent to the Senate.

Lawmakers Discuss Bill That Would Bring Changes To Legislative Auditor’s Office

On this episode of The Legislature Today, the Legislative Auditor is a department under the West Virginia Legislature tasked with auditing offices under the executive branch. There is a bill making its way through the legislature that some say will “defang” the work done by the department while others say the bill strengthens it.

On this episode of The Legislature Today, the Legislative Auditor is a department under the West Virginia Legislature tasked with auditing offices under the executive branch. There is a bill making its way through the legislature that some say will “defang” the work done by the department while others say the bill strengthens it.

Randy Yohe spoke with House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, and Democratic Party Chairman Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, for perspective on the issue.

In the House, a wide range of bills on third reading included a change in oil and gas property taxes, the sale of raw milk and changing the title of the curator of the Department of Arts, Culture and History. Randy Yohe has more.

In the Senate, the chamber approved 10 bills on third reading covering topics ranging from creating a state Alzheimer’s task force to the James A. Manchin Environmental Action Plan. Briana Heaney has more.

Finally, a group that spends a lot of time at the legislature campaigning for Second Amendment issues was back. Bob Brunner spoke to a representative to find out what they were working on now.

Having trouble viewing the video below? Click here to watch it on YouTube.

The Legislature Today is West Virginia’s only television/radio simulcast devoted to covering the state’s 60-day regular legislative session.

Watch or listen to new episodes Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Budgets, Taxes And Clean Energy Jobs On This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, state lawmakers are mulling over countless tax proposals that would directly affect West Virginians and their wallets. On Friday’s episode of The Legislature Today, Randy Yohe spoke with House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, and Kelly Allen, the executive director at the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, to discuss budgets and taxes.

On this West Virginia Morning, state lawmakers are mulling over countless tax proposals that would directly affect West Virginians and their wallets. On Friday’s episode of The Legislature Today, Randy Yohe spoke with House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, and Kelly Allen, the executive director at the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, to discuss budgets and taxes.

Also, in this show, we have the latest story from The Allegheny Front – a public radio program that reports on environmental issues in the region. We listen to their story about replacing coal and natural gas jobs with clean energy jobs.

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.

Eric Douglas is our producer.

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

Resources For Children And Looking At The Legislature, This West Virginia Week

On this West Virginia Week, we began with Child Advocacy Day at the Capitol where lawmakers learned about resources available to the state’s children. Also, we hear from a new survey that shows teachers are increasingly likely to leave the profession in West Virginia. And, we listen to legislative leaders discuss their thoughts on the 2024 West Virginia Legislative session.

On this West Virginia Week, we began with Child Advocacy Day at the Capitol where lawmakers learned about resources available to the state’s children. Also, we hear from a new survey that shows teachers are increasingly likely to leave the profession in West Virginia. And, we listen to legislative leaders discuss their thoughts on the 2024 West Virginia Legislative session.

Emily Rice is our host this week. Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert.

West Virginia Week is a web-only podcast that explores the week’s biggest news in the Mountain State. It’s produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.

Learn more about West Virginia Week.