The Senate completed legislative action on a child care tax credit bill as well as a high school sports transfer repeal during the day’s first floor session.

House Bill 4191 is intended to enhance child care accessibility and support for families and employers in West Virginia by introducing several key provisions.

The legislation expands tax credits for employers who provide or sponsor child care for their employees, defining “employer sponsored child-care facility” to include third-party licensed providers financially supported by employers, and allowing these facilities to be located anywhere in the state without strict proximity requirements.

The bill also establishes a system for licensed child care programs to receive subsidy payments based on monthly enrollment, with a requirement for children to attend at least 8 days per month on average to remain eligible, defining a “day” as 4 hours of attendance in a child care program or 2.5 hours in an out-of-school time program.

Furthermore, the bill mandates the Department of Human Services (DHS) to use a cost of care modeling tool to determine subsidy amounts and report findings, and requires them to implement an electronic filing system for all days of attendance billed by child care providers by July 1, 2026.

A significant component of the bill is the focus on mitigating the “child care subsidy cliff effect,” which refers to the abrupt loss of child care assistance when a family’s income increases slightly, by allowing the DHS to adopt policies that gradually phase out subsidies as income rises, encouraging employment and wage growth while ensuring continuity of care. This mitigation is to be implemented by January 1, 2027, with annual reports to the Legislature on its impact.

The Senate also passed a bill repealing the high school sports transfer rule during the morning floor session.

House Bill 4425 repeals a law that previously allowed students to transfer between schools without losing their athletic eligibility.

In simpler terms, this means that if a student transfers from one school to another, they may no longer automatically be allowed to participate in sports at the new school without facing some form of eligibility restrictions. The original law provided a specific provision for these transfer students, which this bill eliminates.

There was vigorous debate on this bill. Proponents of the legislation argued that the current law has created a serious inequity in high school athletics across the state. They also said that the rampant transferring has caused some schools to lose their sense of community with regard to athletics.

Opponents of the bill argued freedom for students and parents and argued that families should be able to decide where kids should attend and that the student’s athletic eligibility should not be compromised.

The bill passed on a 20-14 vote.

Both bills now head to the Governor’s desk.

The Senate is in recess until 1:45 p.m.

The Senate met on Thursday morning and adopted Senate Resolution 62, which would designate March 12, 2026, as West Virginia Athletic Trainers’ Day.

The Senate also completed legislative action on several bills, advanced bills on third reading, and received messages from the House.

House Bill 4002 would establish the West Virginia Collaboratory.

The West Virginia Collaboratory would be housed at Marshall University and facilitate the dissemination of the policy and research expertise of state institutions of higher education.

The following includes, but is not limited to, what the laboratory must do with the funds available by appropriation of the Legislature:

• Conduct, manage, or participate in research projects and opportunities that may be of interest to citizens and policymakers.
• Conduct research in areas of workforce development, public education, economic development, and natural resource management.
• Support research programs at institutions of higher education within the Collaboratory’s areas of focus and expertise
• Identify, pursue, and support research development opportunities through technology research and development, including funding opportunities and partnerships between institutions of higher education, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and both private and public businesses.

The bill completed legislative action and was sent to the governor’s desk.

House Bill 4008 would amend and expand the West Virginia Business Ready Site Program to improve the state’s industrial site development. The bill aims to certify and enhance sites for economic development by providing funding for infrastructure improvements.

Key provisions would include:

• Site Certification: The bill would establish a certification process to assess and select sites based on their readiness for industrial development, focusing on criteria like utilities and transportation access.
• Funding Assistance: It would provide matching grants and microgrants to support site improvements, covering up to 50% of costs for addressing infrastructure deficiencies.
• Utility Infrastructure: The bill would allow utilities to recover costs for infrastructure development, making sites more attractive for industrial projects.
• Certified Sites Fund: A new fund would be created to support the program, drawing from appropriations and other resources.

The bill completed legislative action and was sent to the governor’s desk.

House Bill 4481 would establish the West Virginia Load Forecast Accountability Act.

The bill establishes oversight and reporting mechanisms for electric load forecasting in the state. The bill aims to ensure that electric load forecasts, used for planning future energy needs, are reliable, consistent, and aligned with the state’s long-term energy goals.

The Public Service Commissions (PSC) would be given the authority to review and validate load forecasts submitted by utilities to PJM Interconnection. This includes evaluating the methods, data, and assumptions used in the forecasts.

The bill passed the full Senate and was reported to the House of Delegates to concur.

As of this writing 129 bills, including 66 Senate bills have completed legislative action.

UPDATE: 

The Senate reconvened to make its way through its second reading part of the calendar and receiving additional committee reports and House messages.

The Senate is adjourned until tomorrow, March 13, at 10 a.m.

The Senate completed action on nine bills, passed 24 back to the House for concurrence, and made it halfway through the second reading calendar during the day’s first floor session.

House Bill 4169 modifies West Virginia law concerning the process for individuals to regain their right to possess firearms after being prohibited due to mental health adjudications or involuntary commitments.

Specifically, it updates the requirements for the mental health examination that must accompany a petition to the court to restore firearm rights. The bill expands the list of qualified professionals who can conduct this examination to include physicians, psychologists, licensed professional counselors, licensed independent clinical social workers, advanced nurse practitioners with psychiatric certification, and physician assistants, provided these latter professionals have prior court authorization demonstrating expertise in mental health or substance use disorders.

This change aligns the examination requirements with those already in place for involuntary hospitalizations, aiming to ensure consistency in how mental health evaluations are conducted for legal purposes.

House Bill 4390 establishes a temporary payment increase for kinship parents, who are relatives caring for children, to match the subsidy amount provided to foster parents.

In order to qualify for this temporary increase, kinship parents must undergo state and national criminal history record checks within five days of placing the child, have satisfactory results from these checks, and complete an initial home screening to address safety issues.

The Department of Human Services will also provide a list of child-placing agencies to help kinship parents become certified as foster parents. This temporary payment increase begins within 30 days of the child’s placement and lasts for a maximum of six months, allowing the kinship parent time to pursue foster parent certification. If the kinship parent is unable or unwilling to become certified within this six-month period, the temporary increase will end, though they will continue to receive other available resources.

The Department of Human Services is authorized to conduct these background checks, and the results are confidential, only releasable to the individual, with their written consent, or by court order, and are not considered public records.

House Bill 5089 requires public schools to accept student transcripts and other credentials from public charter schools, in addition to existing provisions for private schools, homeschool programs, microschools, and HOPE Scholarship programs, which are educational programs or settings outside of traditional public schools.

The legislation also mandates that public schools record the specific class, grade, and the source of the credential on a student’s public school transcript for accurate academic record-keeping. Furthermore, the bill requires an annual report to the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability (LOCEA), detailing the demographics of students re-enrolling in public schools and the type of program they previously attended.

These bills now head to the Governor’s desk.

As of this writing, 70 bills have completed legislative action.

The Senate is in recess until 6:00 p.m.

Afternoon Meetings:

Banking and Insurance at 2:30 p.m. in 208W

Finance at 3 p.m. in 451M

Judiciary at 3 p.m. in 208W

The Senate Education Committee met Tuesday morning, sending a bill that would return oversight of transfers in high school athletics back to the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission (WVSSAC), to the full Senate for a vote.

House Bill 4425 would repeal a 2023 law that permitted a “one-time transfer” for high school athletes. WVSSAC officials, coaches, and administrators testified in the bill’s favor during the meeting.

The WVSSAC enforces the rules implemented by its Board of Directors and Board of Controls, primarily made up of representatives of member schools.

WVSSAC Board of Directors Vice President Steve Wamsley asked the committee to allow his organization the opportunity to find a way to make the transfer rule better. He said he believes all stakeholders agree that the current system is not working.

WVSSAC Executive Director Wayne Ryan cited a growing lack of competitive balance as one of the primary reasons to tighten the restrictions on eligibility for athletic transfers. Data collected by the WVSSAC indicates that margins of victory are getting larger throughout the state.

“We’ve had to change the mercy rule in softball, baseball, soccer, and we’ve had to change the game-shortening rule in football to now take effect in the third quarter,” Ryan said. He noted that 303 high school football games were shortened last season.

Coaches and administrators testifying before the committee detailed the ways that open transfers have negatively impacted community support for athletic programs while creating a disconnect between schools and their communities.

The bill now heads to the full Senate for a vote.

If the bill completes legislative action, the WVSSAC Board of Controls would have an opportunity to implement a new policy later this month.