Tag: The Legislature Today

Legislative interims wrapped up at the Capitol earlier this week and while we brought you some major headlines, like questions over Frontier’s broadband expansion project using federal grant monies and a proposed bill meant to make state purchasing laws more clear, here are a few more issues lawmakers were discussing.

Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability:

New Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Karen Bowling presented the department’s response to a performance evaluation by Pennsylvania-based Public Works.

Aside from finding ways to deal with high employee turnover rates and increase the safety of workers in the field, Bowling said the organization will restructure into three divisions, each with a deputy to oversee multiple bureaus and report back to the Secretary, leaving bureau chiefs more time to spend improving the functions of his or her office.

“When everybody reports to the Cabinet Secretary it’s going to delay a decision,” Bowling said. “If you’re able to separate logically the divisions into something that makes sense, then you put deputies in place that are there to present information to the Secretary so the Commissioners of the Bureaus can go out and do their jobs.”

The three divisions will be the Division of Health, the Division of Human Services and the Division of Public Insurance and Strategic Planning.

Joint Judiciary Committee:

Dr. Allen Collins, a professor and assistant director of resource management at West Virginia University, presented his research on how split estates effect a surface owner’s thoughts on horizontal drilling.

Split estates are portions of land where one person owns the rights to the surface and another owns the mineral rights below, something not uncommon in West Virginia. According to Collins, over 40 percent of the completed wells in the state were located on split estates.

Of the 154 surveys sent out, 43 percent responded by either completing the questionnaire online or on paper. Of the respondents, 62 percent were split estates.

Fifty-five percent of respondents identified at least one problem with drilling, the most common being land damage or damage to the surface after drilling was completed. An average of four problems per respondent was identified.

Collins said his survey showed someone with only surface rights to the land was 22 percent more likely to identify a problem with drilling than mineral rights owners, but dissatisfaction decreased if surface owners received non-monetary compensation like better roads.

Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability:

Gilmer County Superintendent Ron Blankenship updated legislators on the inter-county school being built on the Lewis-Gilmer County line. A consolidation of Troy Elementary in Gilmer and Alum Creek Elementary in Lewis, construction on Leading Creek Elementary School began in August.

Blankenship told legislators the schools are six months away from operating under a joint governance board which would be made up of both county superintendents, both county border presidents and a representative of the state superintendent. For now, the two counties are still operating on their original Memorandum of Understanding, but that board is expected to be in place by the beginning of the 2014 school year.

Construction of the school is expected to be completed by December 2014, but Blankenship said because of the combination of students from two counties into one building, they have decided to postpone moving into the building until the beginning of the 2015 school year.
 

The Governor’s Education Reform Bill passed through the legislature and was signed into law earlier this year. That bill was seen as a major overall to the state’s public education system which critics said was failing West Virginia students, but was only meant to be the first step in reform.

From preschool to college and beyond, legislators have spent the past nine months hearing from the state Department of Education and the Higher Education Policy Commission about how they’re working to expand their reach and improve the quality of education students’ are receiving.

Those same talks continued this week at the Capitol during December interims.

“It has become the hot topic at the Department right now.”

Assistant State Superintendent Kathy D’Antoni referred to career exploration in middle schools. The governor’s bill worked to expand the initiative, giving middle schoolers more opportunities to explore the types of careers available to them.

She told a legislative education committee the department is growing their career aptitude testing for 8th graders to include more modules, helping them figure out not just what careers they may have interest in, but also what path to take to get there.

“There’s one particular module that’s pretty revealing for students,” D’Antoni said. “It’s called ‘budget your life’ and they ask the students to go in and determine what kind of things they want after high school, what kind of house they want to live in, what kind of car they want to drive.”

From there, the program generates a report that tells students what kind of jobs will provide the salary to attain those things.

“So, it’s very eye opening to a lot of students,” she added.

D’Antoni went on to describe a project in the works to bring STEM-oriented videos, which stands for science technology engineering and math, into classrooms. When paired with hands on activities, the videos give students access to careers in fields that are exciting and constantly evolving.

At a higher level, D’Antoni works closely with career and technical education centers across the state that give high school students access to classes. This gives high schoolers a jump start on a vocational career.

Twenty-one of these centers have chosen to take part in a new program created by the Department called simulated workplaces. These workplaces allow students to experience the real world first hand by making them clock in and out everyday while they work as a class to create a business and try to increase its net worth.

Part of the program includes random drug testing, but students can also choose to go through a mandatory drug testing process.

Students who successfully complete that path are given a certificate to attach to their resume after graduation so possible employers can have confidence the students aren’t using drugs.

“It gives me great pleasure to say that over 80 percent of our seniors are opting for mandatory drug testing,” D’Antoni said, which she believes is helping provide the drug-free workforce West Virginia employers want, but are currently having trouble finding.

But the superintendent said there are some portions of the governor’s bill the Department hasn’t been able to fully implement yet.

For example, D’Antoni said high schools and career and technical colleges are supposed to be working together to create clear pathways for students from vocational programs in high schools to two year degrees at the higher ed institutions through a new consortium. She said talks are still only in the early stages to create that consortium.

“We’ve had two systems that grew in isolation of each other,” she told lawmakers, “and we’ve come to a point where the workforce, the future of West Virginia is dependent on those two systems interfacing and talking to each other.”

She shared her personal opinion that the legislature needs to do more to hold the two systems accountable and get them motivated.

“We are sitting in an exciting time in West Virginia of economic opportunity. We have a window that we could just change the face of West Virginia, but we have to get our ducks in a row,” she said.

“Our educational systems need to be very closely attached to not just each other, but also with workforce, with economic development. This has to happen and these difficult conversations have to take place for us to be successful.”
 

A bi-partisan House committee focused on the issues of woman and children across the state will introduce four bills to the full legislature for its consideration in the upcoming session.

“If every Delegate is thinking properly, they’re going to do the right thing by voting for these,” said Delegate Linda Goode Phillips, chair of the Select Committee on Crimes Against Children.

“I think these are more from the heart, common sense bills. We want to protect the children.”

The bills were announced during a press conference at the Capitol Tuesday.

Legislation:

• Misdemeanor Child Abuse Charge- Creates a misdemeanor offense of child neglect by a parent, guardian or custodian that creates substantial risk of bodily injury, punishable by fine and/or prison time, first offense carries a requirement that offender complete a parenting class

• Misdemeanor Child Neglect Charge- Creates a misdemeanor offense of child neglect by parent, guardian, or custodian that creates a substantial risk of bodily injury, punishable by fine and/or prison, first offense carries a requirement that offender complete a parenting class

• Possession and Distribution of Child Pornography- Modifies language in existing law so each frame in a video or image file in a folder or collection of images would be counted as separate image for purposes of prosecution, offense defined as accessing with the intent to view such material to automatic file sharing tools, adds additional felony charges for those viewing more than 500 images and repeat offenders

• Parental Rights- Clarifies the court’s authority to bar visitation rights to a child who was conceived as a result of sexual assault

After a lawsuit criticizing the Salem Industrial Home for Youth last year, the home was ordered closed and its juvenile residents transferred to other facilities throughout the state.

But that wasn’t the end for the Harrison County location. The Division of Corrections has worked over several months to transition the facility and its counselors from one for youth to one that now focuses on the rehabilitation of adult males.

The 388 bed Harrison County location is now the 16 facility under the DOC’s purview, equipped with a dining hall, library, recreation rooms and classrooms like all the others, but also offers additional amenities unique to the center.

In addition to the basic adult education and vocational classes, Salem also offers an onsite WorkForce West Virginia counselor, someone who can guide the inmates to careers on the outside.

Inmates also have access to counselors who deal with local housing authorities to help them find somewhere to live, specialist from the Department of Health and Human Resources and an onsite substance abuse treatment center- things that are unique to this facility, things that will help the inmates transition back to regular life.

“It’s those kind of things that we need to do to assure that these people have a second chance and can go back in and be productive citizens again and that’s basically what this facility here in Salem is designed to do,” Governor Tomblin said after the opening ceremony of the facility Wednesday.

DOC Commissioner Jim Rubenstein said within the next few weeks, all prisoner transfers will be completed filling the Salem beds.
 

Del. Ryan Ferns announced Monday he has switched parties and will run in 2014 for the state Senate as a Republican.

The former Democrat is in his second term in the House of Delegates and first made the announcement in his hometown of Wheeling, W.Va.

Ferns then traveled to Charleston, W.Va., where he, surrounded by Republican members of the state legislature, filed his pre-candidacy papers with the Secretary of State’s Office for the Senate seat.

The seat is currently held by Sen. Rocky Fitzsimmons, who was appointed by Governor Earl Ray Tomblin after former Sen. Orphy Klempa resigned to take a position on the Ohio County Commission.

At press conference in front of the House Chambers, Ferns said he has always held more conservative values and often found he was at odds with his Democratic counterparts in the House.

“I’ve always done what I feel is the right thing for the people in my district and for the state of West Virginia,” he said.

“At this point in my political career, I feel there is no other option for me than to switch to the Republican Party and run for state Senate,” he added.

The announcement, however, didn’t come without some criticism from leaders in the Democratic Party.

In a press release, House Speaker Tim Miley said in a recent conversation Ferns had denied rumors that he was going to switch political affiliation.

“He was in my office a few weeks ago where he was expressly asked whether he was going to switch political parties,” Miley’s statement read, “and specifically stated to Del. Doug Skaff, Majority Leader Harry Keith White, and me that he was not going to switch political parties.”

“In fact, he said that while he didn’t agree with everything for which the Democratic Party stood, he stated he would never become a Republican for reasons that I should not repeat publicly,” Miley said.

He added he was only somewhat surprised by the decision.

“This comes as no surprise to me because many Democrats in his district believe that he has been an ineffective delegate,” state Democratic Party Chairman Larry Puccio said in a written statement.

“They feel he would not be successful in getting through the Democratic primary this time,” Puccio said. “Therefore, it appears Ryan has taken this opportunity as a way out.”

Many Democrats had questioned Ferns’ allegiance to the party after he cast the only Democratic vote against new House Speaker Tim Miley. At the time, Ferns said the vote was meant to show he disagreed with many of the things the party stood for.

Ferns is now one of three West Virginia Democrats who has switched parties to run for office, including state Sen. Evan Jenkins and Clarksburg City Councilwoman Margaret Bailey.

Harrison County Board of Education President Mike Queen has also joined the Republican party, but has not yet filed to run for office. He is expected to run for state senate in the 12th District.

The state GOP has been actively campaigning for West Virginia Democrats to join the Republican Party and run for office in 2014. The deadline to change party affiliation before the 2014 Primaries is Nov. 26, 2013.
 

Legislators got their first look at a bill that would legalize the medicinal use of marijuana in the state during interim meetings in Charleston. A controversial proposal, lawmakers are taking their time scrutinizing the legislation before they even decide to present it to the full legislature for consideration when they convene for the 2014 Regular Session in January.

The comprehensive bill is a compilation of medical marijuana laws from multiple other states and sets forth these five provisions:

1. Creation of a Patient Registry

The patient registry will be maintained by the state Department of Health and Human Resources. Once a doctor has written a prescription that certifies marijuana will be helpful, the patient then takes that prescription to the DHHR to register and obtain an identification card.

2. Creation of Compassion Centers

Compassion Centers are to West Virginia what dispensaries are in other states, they supply marijuana to patients with a valid identification card from the state DHHR. West Virginia will also allow persons with a valid out of state identification card to purchase from these dispensaries. The centers will be selected by the department through a selective bidding process and only five will be licensed in the first year the bill takes effect.

3. Limits to Possession

The bill limits the amount each patient is able to possess to 6 ounces, 12 seedlings and 12 mature plants. It also limits medical caregivers, like in home caregivers or hospice workers, to oversee the medicinal marijuana amounts of up to five patients, each with the same individual limit.

4. Ailments

The draft legislation includes a list of ailments the state will recognize as treatable by medicinal marijuana. Those include: cancer, glaucoma, Crohn’s disease, Alzheimer ’s disease and PTSD.

5. Taxation

The legislation differs from that of other states on how medical marijuana would be taxed. Taxes from the purchase at compassion centers would go into a special fund allocated toward substance abuse treatment in communities and drug prevention in schools.

Concerns raised by legislators with the bill included the possibilities of creating fake ID’s and federal prosecution.

The Justice Department under the Obama Administration has said they will not pursue medical marijuana cases in states where the medicinal use is made legal; however, its use is still against federal law and some state lawmakers worry when a new administration takes over the White House that stance will change.