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Governor Justice says cuts to DHHR would be catastrophic

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Governor Jim Justice today gathered members of his administration and members of the state media into a conference room and said cutting the state Department of Health and Human Resources by $50 million or more would constitute a public health emergency.

The governor appeared a little after 11 a.m. with some of his staff, including state DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch, Revenue Secretary Dave Hardy and state Budget Director Mike McKown.

WV DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch

“It is serious. It is very serious,” Crouch said, adding that some potential cuts could affect matching federal dollars. Of the state’s general fund for the current fiscal year of just more than $4 billion dollars, DHHR amounts to $1.095 billion. Much of the DHHR costs are for Medicaid spending.

Justice was reacting to last week’s announcement of a budget framework by Republican legislative leaders who said they would need to cut $150 million among education, higher education and DHHR to balance the budget at the current revenue estimate of $4.055 billion.

“First of all, those are fantasy numbers,” Justice said today. “They’re using a bunch of one-time money to kick the can down the road. And the numbers are more like 100, 100, 100 than 50, 50, 50.”

Justice handed out paper copies of a set of potential cuts to DHHR and described possible outcomes of the cuts. For example, Option A on the governor’s list would mean cutting aged and disabled waiver services plus reducing intellecutal and developmental disability waiver services to thousands of state residents.

MORE: Examples of DHHR cuts passed out by the Justice administration

“If you cut 50 out of Medicaid, or if that number is 100, the stress and pain that will be to our people is unbelievable,” Justice said. “It’s basically a cut-and-run philosophy: ‘We want you to cut and we’re going to run and we’re not going to tell you what we want you to cut.'”

He also said the administration would be activating a light atop the Capitol dome meant to indicate a statewide emergency. The current situation, the governor said, would qualify as a health emergency.

State law spells out the circumstances under which such an emergency may be declared. Members of the administration said the risk of putting people in nursing homes out in the street would constitute an emergency.

“Because of the health emergency beyond belief, there’s a light on the top of the dome and we’ll turn it on this evening,” Justice said. “And we’re going to let people know that we have a health crisis beyond belief. We have a health emergency that’s right at our fingertips.

“There are thousands and thousands and thousands that are going to be devastated. We’re going to turn on the dome light from the standpoint of declaring an absolute health emergency within this state. If we do the wrong thing right now we’re going to hurt so many people it’s unbelievable.”

And the governor said the administration would turn its conference room into a “war room,” where at 9 a.m. each day legislators would be invited to meet with him until the budget could be resolved.

“We’re going to make this office available, beginning in the morning at 9 a.m. to the legislators to come and sit. I’m proposing we close the doors and lock the doors until we come up with the budget resolved,” Justice said.

“I’m willing to sit here. I’m willing to negotiate. I’m willing to get it done. This business of kicking the can down the road, I don’t like it. Our people didn’t elect us to do that. This office needs to be our headquarters and our war room. We need to sit here and not come out until we get a compromised, responsible budget that is for the people and done in the correct way.”

Legislators commented that 9 a.m. is when the finance committees, charged with the work on the budget, begin meeting each day.

Later in his comments, Justice said he doubts many lawmakers will respond to his offer.

“I’m betting all they want do is more of the same rhetoric. I’m betting they won’t tell you what they want to cut because they don’t have the guts to do it,” he said.

Justice provided an extended description of two recent breakfast meetings with legislative leaders in which he said the food was good but the outcome was zilch.

“Last Monday we had breakfast with the leadership and we talked and everybody said ‘Well, let’s come back this week,’ and we came back last Friday. I left my home in Lewisburg at 5 o’clock in the morning to have breakfast with ‘em and everything.

“Nick Casey (the governor’s chief of staff) said ‘They’re going to come with real ideas and we’re going to get somewhere.’ You know what we got done? Sweet rolls, bacon, eggs. We got nothing done. Nothing and I told ‘em. I said, ‘Listen here, I don’t need to be up at 5 o’clock in the morning and come down here for nothing. If I’m going to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning, I’m going to go turkey hunting if this is what we’re going to do.’

The governor concluded, “Really and truly, we sat right here and did nothing.”

Justice strongly hinted that presentations similar to the one about DHHR would be made in the coming days about K-12 education and higher education.

“In the days ahead we’ll give you the impact of what that would be to higher ed and in regard to K-12,” he said.

Justice also responded to requests by Senate President Mitch Carmichael and House Speaker Tim Armstead that the administration clarify changes it would like to have reflected in the governor’s budget proposal. Carmichael and Armstead asked for those clarifications via letter on Monday afternoon.

“You know I got a letter saying, ‘Can you further clarify what you mean from going from a half a penny to a quarter of a penny?’ Or ‘Could you further clarify what you mean going from two tenths of one percent to three quarters of one percent?

“So I sent ’em a letter. I sent ’em a letter that says ‘In line four where it says half a penny, change that to a quarter of a penny.’ All that is is killing time. They know what we mean. That’s just killing time.”

Justice said he’d like to see action.

“The one thing you’ve got with me is an impatient guy. I’m used to getting something done. I’m willing to work through all the wickets of government. I’ve got that,” he said. “But I’m not going to sit and do nothing.”

See the governor’s discussion here:





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