West Virginia University Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, Rob Alsop, addressed the Joint Committee on Finance regarding the university’s planned restructuring during September interim meetings Monday morning.

Alsop made it clear to the committee that President Gordon Gee’s job is secure, despite an overwhelming no confidence vote from faculty last week. Gee, previously scheduled to address the committee, was not in attendance today, citing a personal matter.

Due to enrollment decline, WVU faces an estimated budget shortfall of $45 million, which it is planning to address via a combination of tuition increases, the use of financial reserves and faculty and program cuts.

The university completed an appeals process last week for announced program changes, altering the programs and number of faculty to be cut. Alsop characterized the cuts as a fraction of the university’s overall academic offerings, in line with a higher education funding formula established by the Legislature.

Some lawmakers expressed concern about students’ ability to receive a well-rounded education at WVU post cuts, as well as the university’s ability to keep its status as an R1 research university.

Alsop assured committee members that the majority of the planned cuts are to programs with relatively low enrollment and that the R1 designation will not be impacted in any meaningful way.

The WVU Board of Governors, whose members are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the state Senate, will meet this week to vote on the proposed cuts and changes. They released a statement last week supporting Gee and the university’s planned restructuring.

Alsop noted that WVU would obviously accept financial help from the Legislature but reiterated the administration’s position that an influx of one-time money for this year would only delay the adverse effects of clear structural issues at the university.

“If I thought there was a realistic opportunity to get another $50 million or $60 million in base funding every year for WVU, we would have been down here,” Alsop said. “But one-time funding is not going to fix the enrollment challenges long-term.”

The Joint Committee on Health met Monday afternoon.

The committee received an update on residential treatment facilities for children. The DHHR is working to build and strengthen community services. Individuals can call 844-help4wv to get information on services available in their area and if needed be connected to a mobile crisis response team. WV Wraparound is a family-centered coordination of services. Other community services include Regional Youth Services Centers and Expanded School Mental Health Services.

The goal of these programs is to reduce the reliance on residential homes. Children and Adult Services is working with a third party, Acentra Health, to evaluate children at risk of being placed in residential homes with a qualified independent assessment. The assessments determine if intervention can be provided at home instead of a residential home. Currently, there are 23 statewide group residential providers with 46 facilities. There are 502 children in in-state group facilities and 275 children in out-of-state facilities.

Currently, there is no logical rate for services provided. Rates are all over the place regardless of the services needed. The department would like to move away from a single rate and move to a rate for room and board, a rate for supervision, and a rate for treatment. Essentially, there would be a base rate, then as more supervision or treatment is needed the rate may increase. The proposed rate structure would not be site-specific, but services program-specific.

The four proposed settings are (1) non-treatment-based treatment homes: focused on achieving permanent family placement and would have community-based treatment services with children who could attend public schools; (2) specialized residential intensive treatment facilities: focused on particular groups depending on specific treatment needs who have historically been sent out-of-state for care (e.g. sex offenders, autism spectrum disorder with major behavior challenges) and would have specific treatment requirement; (3) residential intensive treatment facilities: would offer the highest level of treatment services; and (4) emergency shelters: short term settings to provide residence for children who cannot return to their home due to court order or change in foster care placement.

The department plans for the new rates based on services to be live by January 2024.

The Committee also received a presentation about prevention services from the Bureau of Family Assistance and Family Resource Centers.

There are three types of prevention (1) primary prevention: general population has access to benefits; (2) secondary prevention: high-risk populations: targeted services for family factors, and (3) tertiary prevention: maltreatment has occurred. Concrete support systems such as food, housing, clothing, childcare, and, health care can help prevent children from experiencing child abuse and neglect.

Child Care is a preventative for abuse and neglect. It offers dual-generation support as it supports parents to provide opportunities to work, get an education, or receive training. It also provides a stabilized respite and continuity for the family and developmentally appropriate support for children. It provides access to development assessments, screenings, and therapeutic supports such as birth to three. It also provides behavior consultation.

TANF has four purposes: (1) to provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their homes or in a relative’s home; (2) to end the dependence on needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage; (3) prevent and reduce the number of out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and (4) encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. TANF-supported programs include WV Works, Family Support Centers, Fatherhood Initiatives, Transportation assistance, and WV 211.

Family Support Centers are designed to serve any parent, of any class or income level. Centers are community-based and family-led. The centers are built on increasing protective factors for families and use the national standards for family strengthening and support. Services provided include parenting skills training and support, outreach and referral services, food, baby and hygiene pantries, and yearly childhood playgroups. West Virginia has Family Support Centers in 53 of the 55 counties. Jackson and Roane are the only counties without. The bureau is working to get centers in the remaining, as well as to define parameters for multiple centers within a county.

The bureau is also working to develop a funding database for metrics and monitoring of grants, an interactive map of services, and foundational funding. Ongoing Initiatives include Families are Stronger Together, Preschool Development Grant, county-based assessment of services, and WV 211.

Finally, the committee heard a presentation about WV 211.

WV 211 is an information and referral number for nonemergent needs which was created in the early 2000s. Every state has its own 211. The number was created to take the burden off of emergency operation centers. In 2001-2019, WV 211 was governed by a group of people who were from different areas and they couldn’t find a sustainable revenue source. In 2010, the United Way was approached to save WV 2110 In 2019, a grant was received to stabilize WV 211. WV 211 became operational in 2020, just in time for COVID-19. The Governor promoted WV 211 during every COVID briefing. During its first year, WV 211 received over 21 thousand calls and over 27 thousand website visitors for 155 thousand minutes of help. Most of the calls were for utility assistance, food insecurity, and rent or mortgage help.

In 2021, WV 211 received over 31 thousand calls and over 45 thousand website visitors for over 218 thousand minutes of help. Callers needed assistance with utilities, rent/mortgage, COVID-19, homeless shelters, and food insecurities. In 2022, WV 211 received over 26 thousand calls and more than 111 thousand connections through text, calls, online searches, and chats, for over 239 thousand minutes of help. The needs addressed were utility assistance, rent/mortgage assistance, and homeless shelters. Thus far in 2023, there have been over 23 thousand calls.

Everything about WV 211 is zip code-driven. The top needs expressed during these calls are electrical assistance, rental assistance, food pantries, gas assistance, mortgage assistance, VITA program, water assistance, homeless shelters, home repairs, and homeless assistance programs.

The Judiciary Committee met Monday morning to hear presentations from the AARP.

The presenters discussed ways older West Virginians are losing money. The initial discussion was on auto renewal and continual service contracts. These deceptive practices cause families, especially the elderly, to lose money every year. The FTC is working to create new rules relating to auto renewal and continual service contracts and the AARP recommends the WV Legislature wait for the FTC’s rule-making to be complete before creating laws regulating within the state.

Scam and Fraud is another issue facing senior citizens in the state. In the US, $228 million a year is lost to scammers. Older individuals are frequently the target of scams. Several types of scams are used to defraud people including romance scams, text scams (smsfishing), phone call scams, sweepstakes, prize, and email scams.

These scams do happen here in West Virginia. In Huntington, there was a romance scam involving a “Nigerian Prince.” Another example is a woman from New York with no family who had moved to a rural northern state and was befriended by a younger couple who eventually moved in with her, stole her money and sold her items. The couple then drugged the woman and brought her to Charleston. Police found them and they are now serving time for their actions. With gift card scams, individuals are contacted with an urgent financial matter, like a utility cut off or a grandchild in trouble, and told the quickest way to address the issue is to buy gift cards and provide the card number over the phone which allows the scammer to get the funds.

Another scam is realtors getting the elderly to sign long-term listing agreements of 10 or more years and creating a lien on the homes allowing them to collect money from the elderly individual.

West Virginia already has more stringent laws than other states, however, more needs to be done to help stop this underreported crime. It’s important for individuals to know most providers will not text you through text, the Social Security office will never call you, and never click a link you don’t know.

The Joint Committee on Economic Development and Tourism met Sunday afternoon to hear several presentations including the following.

The Committee heard about dilapidated properties in the state and brownfield properties. Nitro is the #1 recipient of REAP funding for dilapidated properties. Nitro is a little different than most municipalities, as it owned the buildings in phase 1 of their plan. The city saw that owners’ were not doing anything with the properties just paying the abandoned building fees and waiting until they had to pay the fee again. So the city stepped in and invested in itself to buy the properties to be able to tear down or rehabilitate into useful property.

The city’s representatives did say that in the areas of downtown where buildings have been removed, there has also been a 39 percent decrease in calls to law enforcement.  The city has invested in drone technology to provide clear before and after images of the sites. While many of these properties are now vacant lots, they are not quite ready for selling as underground infrastructure is needed.

Nitro started out with a project of 15 properties and added a few. Currently, all city owned properties are down. The city is moving into Phase 2, which is asking citizens if they have properties that need taken down.

Brownfield development goes hand in hand with dilapidation programs. Brownfields are an site that is contaminated or perceived as being contaminated by hazard waste or fuel. Due to this, the site is abandoned or underutilized. Examples of brownfields are industrial buildings, abandoned gas stations, and abandoned schools. In 1995, the Brownfields’ Program was created with pilot grants offered and in 1996, the WV Legislature created the volunteer remediation program. In 2002, the EPA created the three liability protections to get movement with brownstone properties and protect buyers of the properties.

The Committee also heard an update from the Department of Economic Development. The state has seen 6 billion in investments for economic growth. In the last 30 months, 125 thousands jobs were created and the GDP grew 15 percent. Several factors have played a role in economic growth in West Virginia including its central location, low cost of business operations and low cost of living, energy resources, lower health care costs, lower turnover for manufacturing jobs and people willing to travel farther for these jobs, right to work, WV invest, no unemployment debt, streamlined regulatory system, highest home ownership, low crime, and pension funding.  Another draw is the last mile services for those who do not have broadband and the utilization of speed testing to measure broadband enhancements.