This afternoon, Delegate Gregory A. Watt of Heckert Valley took the oath of office to become a member of the House of Delegates. Watt was appointed to fill the vacant seat of Tom Clark. Clay County Judge Mike Asbury administered the oath of office.

Watt, a defense contractor, accepted the appointment to make a difference in West Virginia.

Delegate Watt represents the 48th District, which includes Webster County and parts of Greenbrier and Nicholas counties.

Delegate Watt was joined by his wife, Sherry, for the swearing-in ceremony.

Division of Corrections Commissioner David Kelly told lawmakers on Tuesday that while his agency has improved its ability to fill vacancies for entry-level correctional officers, a recent surge of retirements of experienced officers has proved challenging. Kelly was speaking to members during the final day of October interim meetings at the State Capitol.

Kelly informed the committee of 46 retirements in 2024 and 40 so far this year.

“We believe that the numbers will reach into the 50s this year,” Kelly said. “Just for a little bit of understanding, that could be nearly 100 retirees in 2024 and 2025, and that’s about 3,000 years of experience,” Kelly said. “We have a deep bench at DCR. We’re planning to move forward and place people in the proper positions. It’s not an easy task, but we will get it done.”

The agency is working to fill vacancies and retain staff, achieving a 77 percent retention rate in the current fiscal year, with some facilities retaining up to 85 percent for all three tiers of correctional officers, according to Kelly. He mentioned a pay raise approved by the Legislature for areas of critical vacancy has helped, but recruiting and retention challenges remain.

Kelly said one of the division’s biggest challenges remains recruitment and retention of correctional officers and non-uniformed correctional employees for facilities bordering other states.

“Not only are we working diligently towards filling correctional officer vacancies and non-uniform vacancies, we’re also striving to replace the upper tier of our division,” Kelly said.

Current inmate populations are 4,814 in jails, 4,888 in prisons, 378 in work release, and 297 in juvenile centers.

“We continue to assess our daily population within each facility, and we believe that we are managing our available space to the best of our the best of our ability,” Kelly said.

Kelly noted that four counties are at least 90 days delinquent in their regional jail bills: Webster, Clay, Lincoln and Mingo counties.

He also mentioned that regional jails are benefiting financially from processing detainees for the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in state correctional facilities. The facilities participating in the ICE detention program include South Central Regional Jail in Charleston, North Central Regional Jail in Moundsville and the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg.

The federal government pays the state $90 per inmate per day, with ICE paying nearly $340,000 to DCR between June and July. Those funds are being used for general operational costs for the state’s regional jails.

The Joint Committees on Finance and Pensions and Retirement met this morning for an update on BRIM. BRIM was established in 1957 to provide insurance services to state agencies. In 1982, it was mandated that county boards of education provide general liability coverage. Eventually, it began providing insurance to non-state entities, such as county commissions, cities and towns, transit and housing authorities, and VFD.
BRIM does have a five-member oversight board. There are five departments within BRIM:

• Claims, which handles claims, works to minimize claims; no claim is settled unless BRIM approves it
• Underwriting, which is focused on premium rating and coverage opinions
• Loss control, which provides education and outreach services
• Finance, which makes financial decisions, handles investments, accounting, HR, and office management
• Privacy office, which is a growing department due to growing risk, helps insured entities with cyber privacy and control

BRIM is fiscally prudent and efficient. Six of the coverages offered were tailored for WV agencies:
• General liability
• Personal injury
• Professional liability
• Stopgap liability
• Wrongful act liability
• Auto liability

Risk management services are provided to prevent or minimize claims through various programs, including:
• Lost control of consultation visits
• Property and casualty insurance loss prevention inspections
• Boiler, machinery, and AC insurance and inspection services
• Standards of participation in programs
• Loss control education and outreach services

Adverse claims included sexual and physical abuse, specifically in K-12, and excessive force by law enforcement. Behavioral Risk Management is difficult to manage because you cannot predict human behavior. Changes have been made to non-state programs regarding the adverse claims, including a $3 million aggregate per entity for sexual abuse and an expansion of the definition of abuse. Financial Changes include nominal value rating and increased claim deductible for auto, nonstate, and property.

The committees also heard an update on State Pension Plans. PERS is funded at 100 percent. TERS is funded 82 percent. Many other plans are funded at 100 percent. WV Consolidated Public Retirement Board manages 10 plans, which is more retirement plans than any other state under one board. West Virginia Retirement plans are some of the best-funded plans in the country.

The House Educational Choice Subcommittee heard from Deputy State Superintendent of Schools Sonya White Monday afternoon during October legislative interim meetings at the State Capitol.

White briefed lawmakers on the development of a new parent portal application by the West Virginia Department of Education, intended to streamline the process for homeschool applications and other educational transactions.

The school choice portal would allow parents who are homeschooling to submit the required applications and find a certified teacher who could approve a homeschool student’s portfolio of schoolwork. Parents could also submit their students’ test scores onto the portal.

Homeschool students are required to submit a portfolio each grade level. State law doesn’t require a certain type of teaching certification or experience to review the students’ portfolios.

The portal is based on legislation that passed the House of Delegates last year but ultimately stalled in the Senate Finance Committee. House Bill 3422 would have required the state Board of Education to design, test and deploy an internet-based reporting system for homeschool families.

White said the homeschool portal should be ready by the end of October for initial review and testing. The portal is being developed by the Department of Education in-house and will cost taxpayers no additional money to operate according to White. The department is also redesigning the notice that homeschool families submit to county school officials to be compatible with the new portal. After this work is done, the portal will offer a parent registration component and a teacher registration component for those teachers who review portfolios, according to White.

With the Hope Scholarship educational voucher program opening up to all eligible students, including private and homeschool students by next July, White said phase two of the homeschool portal could include a way to connect Hope Scholarship applications with applications for new homeschool students.

Delegate Kathie Hess Crouse (R-Putnam 19) told the committee there will likely be legislation next year to create a state Office of School Choice.

White said the Department of Education is exploring the possibility of running the the office at the estimated cost of $500,000, which includes paying for a manager and four program assistants to work around the state. Those figures are contingent on legislative appropriation.

Crouse told members she is rethinking whether such an office should be under the department or separate.

“My vision for it may be a little different than the state board’s vision for it, but it’s basically to give parents a place to go to ask the questions and get the truthful answers on school choice,” Hess Crouse said, adding that she has talked to parents that often receive conflicting information from school boards about their students’ options and records.

“It’s something that I want to look further into, so I don’t know where the School Choice Office will go yet,” Crouse said.

Cindy Beane, commissioner for the West Virginia Bureau for Medical Services, presented to the Joint Standing Committee on Finance during interim legislative meetings at the Capitol Monday morning.

Beane discussed the significant changes West Virginia’s Medicaid system faces in the wake of the recent passage of the “Big, Beautiful Bill Act.” The Medicaid system is a healthcare program that is jointly funded by the federal government and states. The most significant change includes the implementation of a work requirement structure.

West Virginia’s Medicaid program costs roughly $5.5 billion annually, with the federal government covering about 80 percent that cost, according to Beane. The overall Medicaid allocation funds a significant portion of West Virginia’s healthcare system and provides a  jolt to the state’s economy.

About 504,000 people are enrolled in Medicaid in West Virginia, Beane said. She noted that roughly 160,000 of those are in the Medicaid expansion population.

The federal legislation institutes more rigorous requirements for Medicaid that are anticipated to cause millions of people to drop their Medicaid coverage nationwide.

The main new provision requires a minimum of 80 hours per month of work, education or volunteer service for able-bodied adults without dependents. The legislation refers to this as “community engagement requirements.”

Lawmakers questioned the effect of these work requirements on West Virginia’s enrollment. Beane said her agency is still trying to figure that out. She noted that from an early evaluation she knows 60 percent of the Medicaid population in West Virginia already has some earned income, but she doesn’t yet know if they’re meeting the threshold of the 80 hours.

“Those are the kinds of things that we’re kind of trying to figure out how many people will be directly impacted that maybe currently are not in the workforce, that we need to encourage to get into the workforce in order to stay on the rolls if they choose to do so,” Beane said.

She did say she thinks it’s safe to say the state will have some level of enrollment decline.

“I do anticipate that we will see some of our enrollment go down for the community engagement,” Beane said. “I don’t have an exact number on that yet.”

The new federal legislation requires those with Medicaid coverage to verify their eligibility to be in the program twice a year, rather than just once, as was the practice previously. The bill also adds a more rigorous income verification for those who enroll in the Affordable Care Act’s health care coverage.

Beane informed lawmakers that West Virginia is participating in a pilot program with seven other states to explore technology to enable Medicaid recipients who are working to report work hours efficiently through a “no touch solution so that people aren’t constantly having to report their hours.”

Beane noted that the new work requirements have prompted the most questions to her office.