State Employees Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

House Lifts Certificate Of Need, Extends Corrections Staffing Emergency

The House passed House Concurrent Resolution 78, indefinitely extending Gov. Jim Justice’s state of emergency over correction facilities staffing levels. The concerns continue to focus on safety, security and maintaining National Guard support.

On Thursday, the House of Delegates lifted the requirement that medical facilities must show a service is needed and extended a State of Emergency for the state’s corrections system.

House Bill 613 passed with a 75-20 vote. The bill lifts certificate of need requirements for birthing centers and medical facilities on a hospital campus and allows facilities other than hospitals to perform MRI’s. Previously, medical facilities had to get state approval before offering new services.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, opposed the bill, concerned the measure would hurt more people than it helped.

“When you allow these private practices to offer these types of procedures that are really what they can bill a whole lot more with, the hospitals also will bill a whole lot more,” Pushkin said. “When they can cherry pick, and they can say, well, we’re not going to take PEIA, we’re not going to take Medicaid, we’re not going to take Medicare, we’re only gonna take private payers. The hospitals, they have to take everybody and rightfully so. Then you can run into a dangerous situation, and who will it hurt? The people who need the services because they can’t afford it.”

Del. Heather Tully, R-Nicholas, supported the bill. She said it would help her constituents with enhanced medical options.

“I live in Summersville. As you all well know, it’s about an hour commute either to Beckley, an hour and a half to Charleston, an hour and a half to Clarksburg or some of our patients even go to Elkins to get obstetrical care,” Tully said. “My hospital in my community also is interested in expanding some cancer treatment services and so that would also eliminate the travel times for patients in my area that may need cancer treatment services if those are to be implemented.

HB 613 is effective from passage and now goes to the governor for his signature.

Del. David Kelly, R-Tyler, chair of the House Jails and Prisons Committee, spoke of the continued dangerously low corrections employment rate.

“We expect to spend anywhere from $17 to $20 million this year, just to cover the cost of our National Guard. Additionally, we’re looking at $22-plus million dollars last year in overtime. And we can only expect that that number will increase this year, because we’re losing our officers almost on a daily basis,” Kelly said. “Our officers are saying I can’t do this anymore. And so I just want to share just a few things with you, if I may. As of March 2, we have 1,042 overall vacancies in DCR, that’s 27 percent. Now when we narrow that down, what we’ve got are 751 officer vacancies. That’s unconscionable. That’s 33 percent vacancies in our jails and prisons.”

The House also completed legislation on House Bill 2002, providing support for families by increasing an adoption tax credit, establishing the eligibility of adopted children of West Virginia residents for early intervention services and creating the West Virginia Mothers and Babies Pregnancy Support Program.

And they passed Senate Bill 273, which allocates child protective service workers in counties according to a county’s average caseload and population based on the 2020 Census.

The bill requires the Department of Human Services to report those changes to the legislature and have a backup system in the event of a centralized intake outage. The bill also orders the development of a merit-based system for specified employees.

Both HB 2002 and SB 273 now go to the governor for his signature.

PEIA Faces Long-Term Funding Challenges

A five year outlook published by the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) keeps state employee premiums at zero through 2027, but anticipates transferring in more than $375 million in public funds to shore up the program.

At a PEIA Finance Board meeting Thursday, CFO Jason Haught laid out a 2024 draft plan that was approved to go to the next step — public hearings.

The 2024 projected plan does include some deductibles and out-of-pocket adjustments.

Under-performing stock market investments and resuming pandemic-delayed elective medical procedures helped create a $92 million deficit in 2022. In 2018, rising insurance premiums and no pay raises sparked a statewide teachers strike.

Gov. Jim Justice has pledged to keep premiums flat during his terms in office. Following the teacher strike, he established a $100 million reserve fund to cover any rising insurance costs. The PEIA long-term outlook figures use all of that funding for 2023 and 2024, with nothing available after that. The concern is the rising costs going into the next gubernatorial cycle.

PEIA Chairman Mark Scott said the agency plans on resuming funding discussions to cover the long-range cost projections and avoid benefit reductions.

“There are discussions ongoing with the legislature about ways that we might be able to impact these price increases going forward,” Scott said. “We are definitely willing and wanting to listen to ideas from all parties on the ways that we can keep these costs from increasing as high as we estimate.”

The 2024 plan will be presented at a series of statewide public hearings, beginning next week.

Justice Asking Legislature For Raises, Bonuses For State Employees

Flanked by Senate President Craig Blair and House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, Gov. Jim Justice announced that he will seek a five percent raise for all state employees in 2022.

Additionally, Justice announced that all state employees will receive a one-time 2.5 percent bonus to combat the rising costs of inflation. The governor said the bonus will be known as the “Inflatocine” – short for inflation vaccine.

“As we’ve gone through this horrible pandemic, we’ve continued to kick out surplus after surplus,” Justice said. “Our state is doing really good. I commend everybody that’s made all the right moves on the chessboard. We want to reward our people for a lot of great work that they’ve done and we also want to continue to help our teachers and make education our centerpiece in West Virginia.

“In addition to this, we have a situation going on in this country with this runaway inflation,” Justice continued. “So we’re going to do a one-time supplement to try to help our teachers and state employees who are contemplating how they’re going to fill their cars up with gasoline and buy groceries with the inflated prices.”

The pay raise and “Inflatocine” bonus will be submitted to the West Virginia Legislature in the form of a bill, which legislative leaders announced they intend to support during the 2022 Legislative Session.

Both leaders indicated their support.

“We are rowing the boat in the same direction, working together as a team, and the coach of this team is the governor. He’s leading the way,” Blair said. “He talks about that rocketship. We’re on the rocketship. We just need to keep going and take West Virginia from 50th to first place in every category. We’re getting there, and it’s time for us to reward and pay the dividends to these state employees. I’m confident that we’ll have no problems getting this through the Legislature.”

Hanshaw was also optimistic..

“We’re happy to be able to join with the governor today and indicate that, as the House, we do have support for the across-the-board pay raise,” Hanshaw said. “We know that it’s been a stressful time over the course of these past two years, when people have had to deal with remote work situations that they normally wouldn’t have been accustomed to or have had to work in environments that have not necessarily been conducive to the usual performance of their jobs. We have chronic turnover in some of our most important state jobs here in West Virginia. We have to deal with that, and dealing with it in the form of compensation is an important part of that process.”

Justice did not discuss how much the raise and the bonus would cost the state or how it would be paid for. He did not take questions from the media during the announcement.

Justice referenced the bonus in terms of helping employees with the holidays, but both measures will require the approval of the legislature, which won’t meet until January 2022.

West Virginia Governor Rejects Parking Increase Proposal

Update from Jun. 21, 2018 at 5:41 p.m.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has quashed a proposal to raise parking rates for state employees.

The state Department of Administration proposed the increase June 11 as well as higher fines for some parking violations. The plan was to have been open for public comment for one month.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported on the proposal Tuesday, and Justice’s office said in a news release that he ordered it withdrawn as soon as he found out about it. The withdrawal is effective Thursday.

Monthly parking for state employees at the Capitol complex and all other off-campus locations with paid parking would have risen from $20 to $25. Fines for some parking violations would have also gone up, some more than doubling.

Original Post from Jun. 21, 2018 at 1:00 a.m.

A rule change has been proposed for West Virginia state employees that would increase the monthly parking cost by 25 percent.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the proposal was filed June 11 and is open to public comment through July 11.

Monthly parking for state employees at the Capitol complex and all other off-campus locations with paid parking would rise from $20 to $25. Fines for some parking violations would also go up. Parking in legislative spaces, parking in no-parking areas and improper parking would be subject to fines of $25, up from $10.

The fine for overtime parking at metered visitor parking spaces would increase from $5 to $10.

The current metered parking rate of 50 cents per hour would not increase.

March 14, 1969: Governor Moore Fires Striking Highway Workers

On March 14, 1969, recently fired highway workers marched on the state capitol building in Charleston, protesting their abrupt dismissal by Governor Arch Moore three days earlier.

On March 3—11 days before the march on the capitol—more than 2,600 public road maintenance workers had walked off the job, demanding that the state recognize their union.

Governor Moore—only three months into his first term—fired the strikers, making an example of them to any other public employees who might be thinking about unionizing. Ultimately, 530 of the highway workers reclaimed their jobs, but more than 2,000 were dismissed permanently.

Despite Moore’s early stance against the public employees, his time in the governor’s office also benefited workers in some ways. He pushed to get hospital insurance for 61,000 state and county workers and to give $1,500 pay raises to public schoolteachers, along with somewhat smaller pay increases for other school staff.

Plus, he pressured the legislature to increase workers compensation benefits by as much as 75 percent and helped settle a national coal strike, putting about 39,000 West Virginia coal miners back to work.

Cuts in Store for West Virginia Employee Insurance Program

The head of the West Virginai state employee and retiree insurance program says big cuts in benefits are coming.

Ted Cheatham of the Public Employees Insurance Agency told the organization’s finance board Thursday that the cuts are necessary because no additional state funding is expected, and the program’s reserve fund is already spent down to the minimum balance.

The Charleston Gazette reports that the board adopted a plan that would cut benefits by nearly $83 million for active employees and about $41 million for retirees, primarily through sharply higher deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums.

The plan for 2016-2017 also would increase premiums by 8 percent for retirees and 3 percent for non-state public workers.