After a key deadline for West Virginia’s Legislature, here’s what your elected officials are focused on

It’s Day 51. That means the West Virginia Legislature has passed one key deadline for elected officials to take actions to help our state meet its many challenges. The 60-day session is an annual opportunity to pass new laws and appropriate our tax dollars toward collective priorities for our state and our communities.

Yesterday was what insiders call “Crossover Day.” Lawmakers had until Day 50 to pass bills out of the house where they began or those bills die for the session (there are some ways around this, and the deadline doesn’t apply generally to spending bills).

So if you heard about something you thought might help stem the flood of drug overdose deaths or help fix the ailing water system in your town or provide more funding for that special person who helps your loved one live independently, and those things didn’t make it “across” from the House to the Senate, or vice versa, by last night, chances are you’ll have to wait until next year. 

Remember that the Republican supermajorities give the GOP pretty absolute ability to control what gets passed and what doesn’t, even to decide what bills are considered by committees.

If lawmakers moved that bill you’re thinking of out of its house of origin, it still faces the final looming deadline: Midnight on Day 60, which falls this year on March 9.

So far, lawmakers have completed work on several dozen bills, and over 500 have made it across … here’s our effort at summarizing major legislation in some of the areas most important to all of us in West Virginia:

Lawmakers advanced some pay raises, including for teachers and police, but didn’t address shortage of teachers and caretakers of West Virginians with disabilities

Going into the session, lawmakers said one of their priorities would be raising salaries for some state employees — if they could afford it. 

A bill that bumps pay for teachers, school services personnel and state police, and one that gives a small pay raise to non-uniformed corrections workers, have passed the House of Delegates, but could face uncertain futures in the Senate Finance Committee. 

These same employees are facing rising costs from the Public Employees Insurance Agency. In December, the PEIA Finance Board approved a 10.5% premium increase for state employees. This means any gain in salary might quickly be wiped out. 

While lawmakers might get these particular pay increases through both the House and the Senate to be signed into law by the governor, they didn’t take up bills to increase pay in some other critical areas.

One is for special education aides and teachers. Last year, lawmakers passed a bill to create a number of new elementary school aide positions. This ended up siphoning off a large number of special education aides, who left for sometimes less-challenging positions. There were two bills this year to bump salaries for special education aides as well as special education teachers to attract more people to the positions. Neither made it across the line before Crossover Day. 

West Virginia also faces a shortage of workers to help people with developmental disabilities, such as Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, stay in their homes rather than living in psychiatric hospitals. 

Health care providers who employ those workers and disabilities rights advocates agreed pay raises could help. But while House Health and Human Resources Committee Chair Amy Summers, R-Taylor, had said pay raises would be on the agenda this year, her committee never considered pay raise legislation. Raises could still be added to next year’s state budget.

Efforts to limit unemployment and food benefit programs still alive

Bills that would put more restrictions on state programs meant to help people access food and bridge the gap between jobs during unemployment are still alive.

Only days after two of West Virginia’s largest employers — Cleveland Cliffs and Allegheny Wood Products — announced layoffs of hundreds of employees, Senate Finance Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, took up two bills aimed at a Republican priority to reduce the number of weeks and amount of unemployment benefits for such workers. One of those bills, SB 840, died. The other, SB 841, sailed out of the Senate in a rewritten version that still significantly restricts eligibility and reduces payments to unemployed West Virginians.

Another bill that cleared the Senate last week would expand the ages of people required to have a job or meet some other exemption to keep receiving food assistance benefits. While some experts estimated the original bill would have affected 75,000 West Virginians, lawmakers made some modifications. State officials estimate the new version will affect under 8,000 people. If it becomes law, able-bodied adults between the ages of 53 and 59 without dependents will have to meet new work requirements to keep their food stamps. 

Child care affordability and access bills never made it out of committee

Before the legislative session, there was bipartisan agreement that there were concrete steps lawmakers could take to make it easier for West Virginians to afford child care. 

In November, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner tied the issue to economic development at a forum in Fairmont. 

“For our economy to grow, we have to address the issue that is affordable child care,” he said.

In January, Gov. Jim Justice said during his final State of the State address that he would ask lawmakers to pass a tax credit to help people pay for child care. 

“We need this and we need this very badly and we need it right now,” the governor said.

But that didn’t translate into legislative action.

There were not one, not two, not three, but four bills establishing a child care tax credit (two introduced at Justice’s request, one sponsored by Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, and one by Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha). 

None made it past a single committee.

Other bills were introduced this year to try to make child care more accessible and affordable. Lawmakers introduced four proposals to encourage businesses to offer child care for their employees (SB 258, SB 373, HB 5052 and HB 5506) None made it out of their chamber of origin. 

Another pair of bills with powerful sponsors in both the House and Senate — Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, and House Health and Human Resources chair Amy Summers, R-Taylor — addresses an issue child care providers have been raising for the past year: their need for the state to reimburse them based on the kids enrolled in their programs, rather than attendance. Neither the House nor the Senate version of that bill cleared the chamber. 

And a lone effort to address another piece of the child care puzzle — the lack of workers — also got little traction. Putnam County Republican Del. Kathie Hess Crouse’s attempt to make all child care workers working at least 20 hours a week eligible for child care subsidies didn’t clear the House Finance Committee.

The Senate killed the CROWN Act intended to protect against discrimination based on hair style  

Despite initial optimism that this would be the year when lawmakers pass a bill to prohibit race-based hair discrimination, supporters were disappointed earlier this week when lawmakers killed the CROWN Act by taking it off the Senate floor and sending it back to the Senate Finance Committee. 

Tarr, the finance chair, did not take the bill back up, citing concerns that lawsuits over discrimination against West Virginians based on their hair styles would cost the state too much money. 

Black West Virginians have been pushing for the CROWN Act for years. There have been instances both in the state and nationally where Black people have been discriminated against when wearing their hair naturally or in traditional styles. 

“There’s absolutely no reason why anyone should have to walk into an office or classroom and have to defend their hair,” Katonya Hart, who has pushed for the legislation for several years, said. 

Lawmakers advanced “Women’s Bill of Rights” and other bills targeting or erasing LGBTQ+ West Virginians 

Lawmakers did succeed in advancing a number of bills that will restrict the options available to LGBTQ West Virginians. 

Just before the deadline, delegates advanced a bill that will tighten a law they passed last year banning doctors from performing gender-affirming treatment for transgender minors in the state. 

Last year’s bill prevented doctors from performing non-reversible procedures like surgery on kids under age 18, but allow hormones to delay puberty if at least two specialists agreed the teen suffers from severe gender dysphoria and is at risk of harming or killing themselves. 

Now, lawmakers are trying to remove that pathway and block the treatments for everyone under 18.

The House passed a bill banning people who identify as non-binary from including that on their birth certificate — despite that not currently being an option in West Virginia.

Delegates and senators both passed a version of a “Women’s Bill of Rights,” which defines males and females based on their anatomy, and which critics say is an effort to make living more difficult for transgender people. 

In the House, lawmakers amended the bill to close a loophole in West Virginia law that allowed for marital rape. The Senate version of the bill doesn’t include that amendment, though senators passed a separate bill that outlaws sexual abuse by a spouse. 

Both chambers passed bills to make it easier to kick kids out of school. Other bills would allow prosecution of librarians. 

West Virginia’s students and teachers continue to face real problems in classrooms around the state. In 2022, West Virginia students fell far below the nationwide average for both reading and math proficiency according to the Nation’s Report Card, though education officials say the scores have rebounded slightly since then. 

Meanwhile, critical vacancies among teachers and service personnel persist, and teacher morale is at an all-time low, according to the West Virginia Education Association. 

A few of the bills still in play would address these issues. There’s the pay raise for teachers and school service personnel, which would give teachers an across-the-board $2,460 a year raise, and school service personnel an additional $140 a month.

While education experts have been focusing on finding ways to keep more West Virginia kids in schools, lawmakers in both chambers have passed bills to expand legislation from last year that makes it easier for teachers to suspend high school and middle school students. The Senate’s version of the bill gives teachers tools to suspend elementary school kids who act violent or threatening, while the House’s version also includes elementary school kids who are unruly or disruptive. 

Still alive are bills to allow the prosecution of librarians and teachers if they provide books deemed objectionable, a bill to allow teachers to discuss intelligent design in public schools, a bill to exempt virtual school students from childhood vaccine requirements, a bill to allow teachers to concealed carry in classrooms and a bill requiring public school students to watch a video produced by an anti-abortion advocacy group about fetal development.

Despite much hand-wringing about the blow-out consequences of a 2023 bill to open up the high school sports transfer portal, lawmakers didn’t act on a bill to reverse that move, so next year’s sports seasons could be very much a replay of what we saw this year.

Bills to address West Virginians’ poor health — including maternal and dental health — didn’t go anywhere

Lawmakers started the session with several bills that would have increased birthing options for West Virginians — in a state that ranks poorly on many maternal and infant health outcomes. 

But lawmakers ultimately didn’t take up bills that would create a state license for certified professional midwives or require Medicaid and PEIA to reimburse for doula services. 

Advocates say both bills would have resulted in more options for childbirth, especially in counties where other maternal health services are scarce.

A bill from Takubo to increase the dental coverage limit for Medicaid enrollees also didn’t get any traction. The limit is currently $1,000, which doesn’t go far when people need extensive dental work. The bill would have doubled the limit to $2,000. 

As West Virginia faces a drug overdose epidemic, lawmakers passed bills to decriminalize drug test strips and make drug possession a felony 

West Virginia officials estimated drug overdoses declined 8% between November 2022 and November 2023, but more than 1,000 West Virginians are still dying every year. 

So far this session, lawmakers advanced bills to help drug users test drugs, and also increase the criminal penalties for many illegal drugs.

One of the first bills to clear both the House and the Senate and be signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice would decriminalize drug test strips, like those used to test for the presence of xylazine mixed into other illegal drugs. 

But while drug test strips no longer count as drug paraphernalia, lawmakers are well on the way to changing the state’s criminal code to make it a felony to possess even small quantities of drugs like cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and meth. 

Proponents of SB 154 say raising the charge to a felony will move these drug cases out of magistrate courts to circuit court, where there are sentencing options like monitored treatment in drug court. But nine counties don’t currently have drug court as an option, and critics say this could end up sending a lot more people to West Virginia’s struggling jail system.

When it comes to West Virginians with substance use disorder in recovery, senators advanced two pieces of legislation.

The first, a repeat of a bill that didn’t make it in 2023, would create a pilot program in Cabell County to make it harder for recovery home operators to kick people out. Operators say the bill would make it harder for them to enforce rules that help residents resist relapse, but proponents like bill sponsor Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, say the bill will protect vulnerable people from unscrupulous recovery home operators. 

The second bill, which also cleared the Senate, would require all West Virginia recovery residences to register with the state Office of Health Facility Licensure and Certification before they’re able to operate. 

Lawmakers promised actions on West Virginia’s troubled jails, but did little to improve outcomes or increase public oversight

West Virginia jails have been a perennial problem that lawmakers have been unable to solve. Over the past few years they’ve been plagued by overcrowding and correctional officer shortages. 

The governor has deployed the West Virginia Air National Guard to help out. And 16 people died in state custody last year — seven of them at the Southern Regional Jail just outside of Beckley.

Lawmakers came into the session promising action, but potentially worsened the problem by making many drug charges felonies. The House did approve pay raises for non-uniformed corrections workers and a bill to provide identification cards for released inmates. 

They also passed a bill that would create a jail ombudsman position; on paper, the effort could provide more oversight of the system, but the new ombudsman’s work will be mostly kept secret from the public. 

Senators passed one bill to make licensing easier for West Virginians with prior criminal convictions, but other efforts to grow the state’s workforce died

West Virginia has one of the lowest labor force participation rates in the country; only 55% of working-age people are actually working. But rather than focus on increasing wages, providing more skills training or helping with the squishier “human capital” needs of workers like child care and transportation, lawmakers instead kept alive a significant cut in unemployment benefits and food stamps.

Lawmakers introduced a handful of bills to attack different aspects of the workforce participation issue. But efforts to raise the minimum wage, create a program to help people find jobs after prison and ban state government entities from asking about criminal records early on in the job application process didn’t make it. One measure was successful: senators passed a bill that says the state cannot deny a person a professional license solely because of a prior conviction, unless the license is directly related to what they were convicted for.

Bills to provide safety and privacy to kids in West Virginia’s foster care system still shields the troubled system from public oversight 

Lawmakers passed a handful of bills to protect the state’s most vulnerable kids, though none addresses the most serious allegations in a lawsuit over the foster care system that was filed in 2019 and remains pending.

Delegates passed a bill to increase the pay of attorneys serving as guardians ad litem, who are often involved in foster care cases. They also advanced legislation to prohibit cameras in foster kids’ bedrooms and bathrooms, and a bill to create an information portal for foster parents to access information about their foster kids.

Two additional measures still alive have been billed as providing additional oversight of the state agency responsible for keeping West Virginia kids – those in the foster system and otherwise – safe.  One would allow the foster care ombudsman to view confidential Child Protective Services records. The other would let a legislative oversight commission hear reports of child injuries, deaths or other problems. But both bills create additional secrecy, doing nothing to change a system that has historically shielded  important information from the public. 

Delegates also inserted a provision into a bill to bar anyone with a pending child abuse or neglect investigation from homeschooling their kids — a measure known as Raylee’s Law. 

Coal companies got tax credits while communities got air monitoring restrictions

As West Virginians continue to face pollution and cleanup costs from fossil fuel industries, lawmakers moved bills to cut coal taxes and make it harder for citizens to hold industries accountable but sat on measures to make companies clean up their own messes.

Earlier this month, delegates passed a bill to block the state Department of Environmental Protection from considering citizen air monitoring unless it meets stringent quality criteria. At a public hearing in early February, most speakers told lawmakers that community air monitoring can help fill in pollution information gaps. Delegates passed the bill anyway.

Another measure that House members approved this week would give coal companies a tax credit for up to $100,000 they spend on road improvement projects. 

While those bills are still alive, two bills that would have required companies to put up more money to cap non-producing natural gas wells didn’t even make it onto a committee agenda.

West Virginia has tens of thousands of these wells around the state. Some have been abandoned by their companies, while others are designated as “orphans” because their owners are unknown or aren’t in business anymore. These wells can leak methane, contributing to climate change, and can cause health effects, damage soil and pollute groundwater. The cost of cleaning them up often falls to taxpayers. 

Lawmakers have introduced bills for the past six years to try to stem the tide of new orphaned wells, the GOP leadership never moves those bills through. This year wasn’t an exception, even though the Senate version of the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Randy Smith, R-Tucker, heads up the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee.  But, an attempt to exempt from prompt cleanup requirements companies that work out delays with state regulators also died, stuck in a House committee.

Meanwhile, still alive in the Senate is a House-passed bill that would create a council to focus on economic help for coalfield counties struggling as the mining industry continues to decline. Lawmakers created a similar agency two years ago, but little has been done to follow up on its recommendations.