MONTGOMERY, W.Va. — Montgomery Mayor Greg Ingram said he was extremely disappointed to when he got the news from Kansas based KVC Health Systems this week.
The company has scrapped its plan to create a college environment for young people coming out of foster care and into adulthood.”I was excited the program even exists. I was excited it was coming to Montgomery and I was excited we were going to be able to ‘foster’ those kids even after they got out of foster care,” he said. “We were trying to do the right hing with kids.”
The program came with much fanfare. Governor Jim Justice announced plans for the facility two years ago in his first State of the State Address. At the time, the announcement was a huge boost to the Upper Kanawha Valley because WVU Tech was in the process of transferring its campus from Montgomery to Beckley.
Since that time however, WVU Tech has relocated but the promise of finance backing did not materialize for KVC.
“The verbal commitments were abundant, but nobody really came through with funding,” Ingram explained. “It’s a sad day and a sad announcement. I do know KVC made every effort.”
Ingram said the money KVC had to operate initially was gobbled up with deferred maintenance to prepare the buildings on the campus for the program.
“There hadn’t been a whole lot of maintenance done to those buildings since WVU took over in 1995,” he said.
The buildings on campus remain the property of West Virginia University and under a a previous agreement, WVU will continue to handle day to day maintenance to keep the facilities viable for prospective tenants. The university is also obligated to continue to help locate tenants for the campus working with the city.
It’s another blow to Montgomery, but Ingram said other possibilities are being explored.
“I do know there are some other negotiations going on,” he said. “I think we will recover.”