WEIGHING IN – Gov. Jim Justice said he is disappointed that the special session nearly ended yesterday without a bill providing funding for state human services programs. — Steven Allen Adams
CHARLESTON — All 15 bills placed on a special session agenda by Gov. Jim Justice passed by the time the West Virginia Legislature gaveled out Tuesday, but he was not pleased with nearly losing a bill restoring funding for the departments of Health and Human Services.
Justice released a statement Tuesday night following the adjournment of the first special session of 2024. Justice issued a proclamation Friday calling the Legislature into the special session which began Sunday.
“For months now, I have demanded that we need to restore the budgets of our Department of Health and our Department of Human Services, so that hundreds and hundreds of our doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers won’t face rate cuts and to ensure that tens of thousands of our people won’t see reductions in needed services,” Justice said. “At the end of the day, we won for the people of West Virginia.”
Lawmakers passed 15 bills, some of which were meant to restore funding cut during the regular legislative session earlier this year from Senate Bill 200, the bill setting the general revenue budget for fiscal year 2025 beginning in July.
Funding was cut from several line items in March in case the U.S. Department of Education decided not to grant a waiver and setting up a scenario where the state might have to spend an additional $465 million on education programs to remain eligible to spend remaining federal COVID-19 dollars distributed to county school systems. But that waiver was granted in April, allowing money set aside to return to those cut line items.
One of the bills passed during the special session, Senate Bill 1001, returns more than $5 million to the Department of Health and more than $183 million to the Department of Human Services.
“Today’s restoration of more than $183 million in funds will allow DoHS to continue to provide essential services through its Bureau for Child Support Enforcement, Bureau for Behavioral Health, Bureau for Family Assistance, Bureau for Medical Services, Bureau for Social Services, and the Office of Drug Control Policy,” said Cynthia Persily, cabinet secretary for the Department of Human Services. “Of the funds, more than $89 million will remedy the anticipated Medicaid shortfall for Fiscal Year 2025.”
However, disagreements between the House of Delegates and the state Senate over how those funds should be used nearly caused the special session to end without the bill being passed.
The bill creates reserve funds in both departments for the restored funding. It allows the secretaries of the departments to transfer money out of the new reserve funds to provide money for other line items.
It requires the secretaries to file monthly reports to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Government and Finance to explain any transfers. It also prevents any expenditures from these appropriations after March 30, 2025, with remaining funds going back to the general revenue fund. And it would prohibit DoHS from transferring funds from the home and community-based waiver program to any other appropriation in DoHS.
But the House tried to amend the bill with specific appropriations from the $183 million for DoHS to fund recommended provider rate increases for specific waiver programs, including to $10.3 million to increase provider rates for Title 19 aged and disabled waiver program, $10.7 million to increase provider rates for the IDD waiver program, $6.6 million to increase provider rates for personal care services, and $135,000 to increase provider rates for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) waiver program.
The Senate stripped the House provider rate increase funding provisions from the bill Monday night, with the House refusing to concur with the Senate’s position. On Tuesday, the Senate adjourned the special session sine die, forcing the House to either accept their version of the bill or adjourn without the bill. In the end, the House decided to vote for the Senate-amended bill and adjourn.
Justice, who had advocated for lawmakers to return funding to DoHS for more than two months, placed the blame for SB 1001 nearly being lost on unnamed lawmakers and pressure from lobbyists seeking carve outs for their constituencies.
“I have been extremely disappointed in the behavior of a few of our legislators over the last few days,” Justice said. “If the rhetoric from a few members wasn’t bad enough, the special interests and the lobbyists came in and tried to hijack things that could have truly hurt our people … I’ve only got a short time left as your governor, and we’ve got to make sure we stop the rhetoric that can absolutely destroy the good that we’ve already achieved.”
Even though the House version of SB 1001 did not pass, supporters hope that DoHS heard the message loud and clear to increase provider rates for the waiver programs. In her statement, Persily said the message was received, with the department looking at making adjustments as soon as July.
“We heard legislators’ concerns about the need for transparency in the spending of funds they have appropriated and the need for essential services to be funded,” Persily said. “The department is committed to providing this transparency and continuing to analyze reimbursement rates for all providers of services.”
The Legislature also passed bills providing $50 million for a new agriculture laboratory at West Virginia State University, $150 million for road paving projects, and $83 million for higher education, part of which will go towards grant programs for incoming students to colleges and universities in the state.
“When the federal government put our higher education system into crisis with their mishandling of the FAFSA, I demanded that we pass funding so our kids don’t miss their opportunity to go to college,” Justice said. “At the end of the day, again, we won for all our kids in this Great State.”
