The House of Delegates passed a bill that would establish significant pay increases for state social services workers, aiming to entice them to stay on the job with raises adding up to about 20 percent.
Officials say that won’t automatically solve the problem of vacancies among child protective services workers, but it’s a start.
“I believe this might be one of the most important bills we consider all year,” said Delegate Jonathan Pinson, R-Mason, who was referring to the pay raises for social services workers as well as additional aspects of the legislation.
Delegates passed the bill 99-1 with only Delegate Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, voting against it. The bill now goes to the state Senate.
House Bill 4344 would require pay raises to encourage recruitment and retention for employees that include adult protective services and child protective services workers. The raises are 15 percent per employee in addition to the average 5 percent pay raises for state employees being pushed by Gov. Jim Justice.
The budget presentation for the Department of Health and Human Resources has revealed 1,400 unfilled positions of the agency’s total 6,400 full-time roles.
The highest number of openings, 836, are for people who would make less than $32,000 a year. The next highest, 573 positions, are for workers getting paid somewhere in a big range of $32,000 to $64,000 a year.
“Listen, the DHHR employees have a very difficult job that they do for meager or modest pay,” Pinson said. “We have to slow the turnover rate in the state of West Virginia. We have to fix the vacancy rates in DHHR, which right now is up to 30 percent statewide.
House Bill 4344 also makes a range of changes to the state policies governing foster care, including requiring child placement services provide services to kinship families and requiring the agency to use updated computer systems and clarifying some of the roles of the foster care ombudsman.
Delegate Lisa Zukoff, D-Marshall, also praised the bill.
“This is just the tip of what we can do to help our system be better,” she said. “There’s been a lot of work, a lot of effort and at the center of this bill is helping West Virginia’s most vulnerable.”
House Health Chairman Matthew Rohrbach, R-Cabell, noted this is the second major bill passed by the House the past two years to try to reform West Virginia’s foster care system.
“I believe we’ve pushed out another very good product to move the ball forward,” Rohrbach said. “So we will keep working because this is probably as important as anything this Legislature deals with, our children.”