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Education and arts secretary defends department’s work on MetroNews ‘Talkline’

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The secretary of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts is defending her department as members of the Legislature again consider a possible dismantling.

“Through our reorganization and our restructuring, we have built a very effective group of agencies and programs that support one another and deliver resources across this state every single day,” Secretary Gayle Manchin said on Monday’s MetroNews “Talkine.”

Gayle Manchin

Her appearance came with HB 4006 pending in the House Finance Committee on Day #13 of the 2018 Regular Legislative Session after advancing out of the House Education Committee last week.

“It’s a little scary to think the executive of this state, the governor, can have a cabinet position and appoint a secretary and the education committee in the House can just do away with it,” Manchin said at that time.

She reiterated that Monday.

The Department of Education and the Arts, created under former Governor Gaston Caperton, is a separate entity from the Department of Education.

Originally formed in an attempt to shift education oversight, the attempt was dropped when a required Constitutional Amendment failed.

Since then, “Down through the years, what the Education and the Arts has become is a place where those initiatives and programs around this state that do not necessarily fit into K-12 (can go),” Manchin said.

The department’s agencies include the Division of Culture and History, the Division of Rehabilitation Services, the Center for Professional Development, the West Virginia Library Commission, West Virginia Public Broadcasting and Volunteer West Virginia.

“This cabinet-level position has become a catch-all to stick programs in to justify their existence,” claimed Delegate Mike Folk (R-Berkeley, 63) last week during the House Education Committee meeting.

Under the House bill, the responsibilities of the Department of Education and the Arts would be shifted elsewhere.

Manchin, though, argued such moves could be complicated and put existing programs in jeopardy. “If it’s in code, it can’t be changed,” Manchin said. “Many of these programs are not in code.”

The uncertainty is causing apprehension, she told Hoppy Kercheval, “Just listening to the conversation of the House Education Committee and how they referred to these programs as ‘stuff.'”

Last year, the House passed a similar measure to dismantle the Department of Education and the Arts, but the bill did not make it through the Senate.

Governor Jim Justice has included funding for the department in his proposed budget.





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