CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Gov. Jim Justice plans two public appearances today to talk about the contentious issues of teacher pay and healthcare benefits.
The governor first plans to appear at 11:30 a.m. at the Little Theater at Logan High School for a town hall focusing on teachers, service workers and state employees.
Then at 4:30 p.m., the governor will have a similar meeting at the Underwood Building at the State Fair grounds.
Both appearances were to be streamed the governor’s website, although soon after the Logan event began the Governor’s Office tweeted that technical difficulties meant the event would not longer be streamed live but instead would be posted to the Governor’s YouTube site later today.
Teachers have been having rallies across the state to express their concern over the governor’s proposed 1 percent pay increase, which many view as not keeping up with inflation, and rising out-of-pocket costs in the Public Employees Insurance Agency plan.
Hundreds of teachers poured into the Capitol this past Friday to demonstrate.
Democratic lawmakers have appeared at many of the rallies around the state, saying it’s time for state government to make tough choices to support teachers and public employees economically.
Republicans who have appeared at such meetings have had a more difficult time.
For example, at an event in the Clarksburg area on Monday evening, Delegate Danny Hamrick, R-Harrison, got a vocal audience response when he said, “We’ve heard you in Charleston.” Hamrick later said he’d vote for “as big a pay raise as the state can afford,” after he was posed a direct question by one of the speakers.
Justice campaigned for governor as a Democrat with the support of teachers unions. After he switched his party registration to Republican, he remained on good terms with teachers unions.
Speaking Monday in the Governor’s Reception Room, Justice said significant work is being done behind the scenes to shore up teacher pay and healthcare benefits. Justice also said the state needs to be careful to use its resources wisely.
Justice said he had spent much of Monday morning with Senate President Mitch Carmichael and House Speaker Tim Armstead trying to sort through what can be done.
“You will see something come out of the Republicans in the very near future that is going to be a wonderful package,” Justice said.
Justice said he supports a raise and bolstered benefits.
“The bottom line is just this, our teachers need to be paid more money. They do. That’s all there is to it,” Justice said. “We have 700 classrooms in this state without a teacher. It’s bad. We’re not really competitive with other states. Bad. And if you’re that teacher, you’re struggling to get by.”
But the governor said the state still must be careful with its money.
“Now, here’s the real deal. You’ve got to run this state. You’ve got to be prudent in what you do. The one thing we can do that will really just harpoon us is if all of a sudden we get up on top of the wave and we start moving forward and we do things that are going to be trailing with us no matter what happens — and then we find out the wave is not quite as good as what we thought it was. And all of a sudden we slip back into the dire circumstances we had before.”