CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Early last October, state lawmakers stood with Gov. Jim Justice as he promised a pay raise for teachers and other state employees.
Justice pledged “that we’re going, in the next session, these people are committing, I am committing, all of us are committing, to an additional five percent pay raise for the teachers and all state employees.”
Alongside him stood senators such as President Mitch Carmichael, Majority Leader Tom Takubo, Finance Chairman Craig Blair, Education Chairwoman Patricia Rucker and still others: Charles Trump, Greg Boso, Chandler Swope, Mike Maroney, Donna Boley, Sue Cline, Charles Clements and Mark Maynard.
“So you see, the bottom line is, who’s delivering? Who’s delivering?” Justice said that morning, about a month prior to Election Day. “We absolutely all believe in education. We think we should invest in education. As we do that, and we’re doing it right now, we’re putting our money where our mouth is, period. Period.”
Now the governor is hoping the state Senate will stand by him again.
“I hope they’ll pass my bill,” the governor said Friday during an interview at the Governor’s Mansion.
The Republican-led Senate soon will consider a pay raise for teachers, school service personnel and State Police. The bill passed out of the House of Delegates on Friday.
Over the past month, the governor has found himself politely at odds with the Senate majority. A month ago, senators introduced an omnibus education bill that bundled the pay raise with a variety of other provisions. The House of Delegates killed that bill last week.
The governor has just wanted the pay raise bill.
“I am very respectful of their position, whatever they may think, because they’re elected officials, they’re senators, they have wisdom and everything else,” Justice said Friday.
“But I believe we had an opportunity within this session to do what we said we were going to do — pass a pay raise for everybody. We didn’t say we were going to pass a pay raise if they did this and this and this.”
The “clean” pay raise bill still might not be so simple in the Senate.
The bill was assigned first to the Senate Education Committee and then to Senate Finance. A motion on Saturday to take the bill straight to the Senate floor failed 14-18 with two absences.
Some senators have sounded agreeable to the just-the-pay raise concept. Others say they have already voted on a pay raise, meaning the one in the omnibus bill.
Takubo could be in the first category.
Speaking Friday morning on MetroNews’ “Talkline,” Takubo said teacher pay raises need to be brought up to be competitive with other states.
“I can’t speak for my entire caucus,” said Takubo, R-Kanawha. “A lot of people felt we absolutely supported not only a 5 percent pay raise but there was so much other good stuff to help not only with paid incentives to get specific needs taken care of in the state in that bill.
“And it was rejected, and we’ve had thousands of emails saying ‘Keep it; we don’t want it.’ That was not trying to keep a pay raise hostage. We 100 percent believe people needed that raise, but we needed a lot more. We had about $68 million more in public education we were trying to invest there.”
.@DrTomTakubo joins @HoppyKercheval to discuss the status of the “clean” pay raise bill. WATCH: https://t.co/wkudfIAoe1 pic.twitter.com/eiMIVaZGxJ
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) February 22, 2019
Senate Finance Chairman Blair, R-Berkeley, struck a different tone, saying he’ll have a difficult time getting behind the pay raise bill.
“I said at the beginning of the year that if the teachers went on strike while we were going through this process I would not vote for a pay raise,” Blair said during his own appearance on “Talkline.”
Blair said he’s not alone.
“There are others who feel the same way. We compromised several times on our omnibus bill to try and get something across the line,” Blair said Thursday.
Another senator, Rollan Roberts, echoed the line about having voted for a pay raise already.
“My position is, I have already voted twice for teachers to get the pay raises and to get the other things,” he said. ”
“I think what came out in the final analysis, I think it should have been acceptable for everybody, but apparently it was not because the bill was killed.”
Senate Education Chairwoman Rucker again expressed support for the raise, but also frustration over aspects of Senate Bill 451 that didn’t pass.
“I believe the teachers need to be paid more, but I also strongly believe in allowing locality pay and differential pay, and all of those were aspects of 451 that were very important,” said Rucker, R-Jefferson.
“We have to allow our counties to be able to compete, and we have to allow them to do what they need to do to get certified teachers in that classroom.”
Asked about the comment by some senators that they’d already voted on a pay raise bill, Rucker commented, “Yeah, well, it’s true, we voted for it twice.”
Senator Bill Hamilton, R-Upshur, was one of two Republicans who voted against the omnibus education bill. He also voted in favor of amendments that would have removed charter schools and education savings accounts.
Hamilton said he favors the pay raise bill by itself.
“I can’t second guess what leadership is going to do with the bill when it comes over, but, you know, I’m for the standalone pay raise bill,” he said. “But if they load it up with different amendments, I’m just going to have to do a judgment call as to whether I’m going to support it.
“But if they throw in charter schools and ESAs, then no.”
A Democrat, Paul Hardesty of Logan County, said it’s hard to forecast what the Senate will do. Hardesty was a longtime lobbyist but has served in the Senate only a few weeks.
“From what I’ve seen in my short tenure in Senate politics, nothing’s simple obviously,” he said. “I don’t know what type of gamesmanship or one-upsmanship might occur; I just don’t know at this point in time.”
Hardesty said he’ll support the bill if it just includes the pay raise.
“The governor made it perfectly clear back in the fall that he supported raising these teachers’ pay across the state of West Virginia, as well as our other state workers,” Hardesty said. “I think that’s something’s he’s committed to, and I think it’s a noble gesture on his part.”
At midday Friday, the governor said he had not spoken with members of the Republican majority in the Senate.
“I have not. I have not talked to them,” he said. “I have called requesting that we meet.”
By Saturday evening, the governor’s social media was sending out a plea.
I am very pleased that the House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to pass my clean pay-raise bill yesterday. I am now calling on the Senate to do the same and pass the bill as soon as possible. https://t.co/T3iazCjTJy #WV #WVGov
— Governor Jim Justice (@WVGovernor) February 23, 2019