This last week of the legislative session brought a compromise on a bill giving the boards of governors at WVU and Marshall more local control while the state Higher Education Policy Commission maintains oversight of presidential salaries.
The universities will be able to undergo projects up to $30 million without HEPC oversight.
Calling the compromise a slight improvement over the original bill, HEPC chairman Dave Hendrickson said his agency continues to lose some of its power.
“I don’t know of much that can be done to stop erosion of the oversight by the policy commission,” Hendrickson told MetroNews Tuesday after the bill passed the House Education Committee. “For whatever the reason, WVU and Marshall feel like they have to have this bill in order to function. I don’t really understand that but greater minds have differed on other issues.”
The bill, which already passed the Senate, must return there if it passes the House because of the changes made. Hendrickson said the bill appears to have momentum, so it was in the best interests of the HEPC to make the compromise.
“It’s sort of like agreeing to be carried across the river,” he said. “We started out in a riverboat but you can’t have that so we ended up in a pontoon.”