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
