Gov. Patrick Morrisey stopped short on Tuesday of promising West Virginians that his administration will spend all federal money allocated for helping kids in foster care transition to adulthood.
The governor’s comments came hours after Mountain State Spotlight published an investigation revealing that, from 2010-2023, West Virginia health officials returned nearly $7 million in these funds to the federal government.
The money, made available through the federal John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, is meant to provide older foster kids and former foster kids help with college and trade school tuition, rent, tutoring and other services.
But of kids who aged out of the foster care system in West Virginia between 2018 and 2023, just 13% received any services through the grant program.
It still isn’t clear whether Morrisey’s administration has spent all of the money allocated under this program in the latest grant cycle, which ended on Sept. 30, 2025.
During a press conference focused on the administration’s child welfare initiatives Tuesday, Morrisey told reporters the Department of Human Services had made multiple strides, including reducing the number of child removals and shortening the child protective services investigation backlog.
He also said the administration will unveil a legislative agenda, which will include the creation of a fund for renovations and repairs to existing state properties, in an effort to expand the capacity to treat children at residential facilities in West Virginia instead of sending them out of state.
Asked whether he’d promise no more of the Chafee funds for former and older foster youth would be returned unused to the federal government, Morrisey said “if there are dollars available to help people, we’re going to use those dollars.”
But then he talked about fiscal responsibility.
“We try to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollars, and so we try to be very careful to spend money in the most cost effective manner possible,” he said, adding that he was referring to both state and federal dollars. “And if we think that the federal dollars can help the state of West Virginia, we’re not only going to use them, we’re going to spend those monies very carefully as well.”
Morrisey noted that the time period covered by the Mountain State Spotlight investigation ended in 2023, before he took office. He said he didn’t want to speculate on why funds were returned during that time.
Department of Human Services spokesperson Angel Hightower previously said the practice would not continue under Morrisey’s administration.
But the Department hasn’t provided more recent figures to show whether Chafee funds are going unspent for the current grant cycle.
Morrisey said he’d look into whether his administration is holding unspent funds.
“I’m happy to take a close look and to evaluate that,” he said.
Hightower previously said state health officials didn’t have figures available because the grant report wasn’t yet due. In 2024, the agency filed the report on Dec. 16.
Following the press conference, Morrisey’s spokesperson, Drew Galang, referred Mountain State Spotlight to Hightower’s previous response.
Hightower also said low participation rates for Chafee services previously were due to a lack of social services in some parts of the state.