As West Virginia lawmakers go deeper into an assessment of whether the state’s health and human resources agency functions as it should, they have a new resource: the deputy director who abruptly parted ways with the agency last month while saying it wasn’t moving fast enough to reform.
Jeremiah Samples, former deputy director for the Department of Health and Human Resources, has started working for the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Government and Finance as a senior adviser.
His arrival comes right as lawmakers are heightening their focus on how DHHR could better accomplish its mission of improving health and living conditions for West Virginians. It also comes right after his sudden departure from the agency, when Samples offered both encouragement for those who remain and criticism that DHHR has not been aggressive enough in working toward better outcomes.
In short, a longtime employee with expertise in every nook and cranny of the agency has gone right from a rocky departure straight to a separate branch of government that is keenly interested in providing more oversight.
Staff for the Joint Committee on Government and Finance works on a range of issues as a resource for lawmakers who need deeper examinations of West Virginia’s many policy issues. So Samples could wind up with a variety of duties, but officials confirmed that his work will include a focus on the agency he just left.
“As President Blair publicly announced at the Joint Committee meeting, Jeremiah is working for the Joint Committee and will be assisting in multiple things including the DHHR review,” said Aaron Allred, legislative manager for the Joint Committee on Government and Finance, responding to a request for clarification from MetroNews.
Senate President Craig Blair over the years has described Samples as a valuable resource. The Senate president did so again during recent legislative interim meetings.
“Jeremiah Samples, who all of us here have used extensively over the years with working with the DHHR, who has been a tremendous asset personally to me, has been hired by the joint committee,” Blair told fellow lawmakers. “And as we move forward, he’s in a consulting role working with us. This is all in a positive fashion, not a negative. It’s not designed to undermine anybody or anything like that.
“I’ll tell you right now that when I listen to all this, I need an interpreter. I need somebody to explain to me what is going on. I don’t understand it. Jeremiah Samples has been that interpreter for me for many years, so that I was able to make the right decisions with what’s going on.”
Samples for several years represented the face of the agency before state lawmakers, presenting the agency’s budget needs and describing specifics of its work to legislative committees. He split with the agency in April, just weeks after this year’s regular session ended, and his public statement right after that cited philosophical differences with DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch.
“Unfortunately, Secretary Crouch and I have not shared the same views on what the problems are, how to handle them, or the urgency of achieving results, but I respect this parting of ways and pray for the state’s success in solving these issues,” Samples stated last month.
His statement also referred to DHHR’s many challenges.
“Despite having an allocated budget of ~$7.5 BILLION, tireless dedication by wonderful staff and Commissioners, and an expectation for success from the Governor, DHHR has struggled to make, and even lost, progress in many critical areas,” Samples stated.
“Child welfare, substance use disorder, protection of the vulnerable, management of state health facilities, EMS and provider capacity, supporting client transition from public assistance to the workforce, contract management, and many more DHHR responsibilities have simply not met anyone’s expectation, especially my own.
In remarks to fellow legislators last Sunday, Blair made clear that he believes Samples’ expertise will be an asset — not the means to undermine the administration or the agency’s remaining leadership.
“It’s not meant to thumb our nose at the secretary or thumb our nose at the governor or anything like that. But we have a duty to be able to conduct our business, and I believe he’s a key ingredient,” said Blair, R-Berkeley.
House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, agreed that experience will be invaluable as lawmakers examine matters like a reorganization of DHHR, the financial outlook for the Public Employees Insurance Agency and more.
“They’re going to require the Legislature and the executive to be holding hands to formulate some plans of action, so we’re doing a number of things with our staff, bringing on new staff, reorganizing some things within our staff to better prepare us to make some of those decisions,” Hanshaw said.
DHHR is about to be subject to a top-to-bottom review by outside experts.
That came about after a bipartisan coalition of state legislators passed a bill during the most recent regular session to divide the agency into the Department of Health and the Department of Human Resources. They said experience had taught them the state’s largest agency is just too unwieldy to get a handle on its operations or finances.
Gov. Jim Justice vetoed the bill, saying a restructuring needs a longer, more careful examination. That is about to get under way, with lawmakers wanting to hear regularly from whichever consultant is chosen to head up that work.
A joint statement by Blair and Hanshaw in response to a MetroNews request for more context about whether Samples would play a key role in assessing DHHR made reference to the impending review:
“As part of our collective process for that reorganization, the Legislature consulted with Gov. Justice and his team. While the executive branch is well-staffed with professionals who have deep experience in human services, insurance, health care and health care administration, to fully contribute to this collaborative effort, the Legislature needed to bring in additional expertise to advise legislators and legislative staff on these complex issues.
“Jeremiah Samples is a known quantity with existing relationships throughout the Legislature, and he was added to the Joint Committee’s staff to bolster our ability to help develop and review effective proposals to carry out a reorganization.”
Lawmakers who gathered for interim meetings last week in Morgantown agreed their focus on DHHR will continue. Legislative leaders who serve on the Joint Committee on Government and Finance said they want monthly updates on aspects of the agency’s work.
“There are several things that have been crisis situations with DHHR, which has led to a lot of discussion about breaking it up and having it looked at to see how many sections it should be or shouldn’t be,” said Senate Finance Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam.
“I would like to see when we have things in there that are burning fires within DHHR that they come in here and give us the number on the size of that fire, and are we making progress, or are we not? Some of these have continued to get worse in spite of appearing from the secretary that he’s got a plan, got a plan, got a plan.”
A letter put together by Tarr during the regular legislative session asked for the Joint Committee on Government and Finance to examine several concerns: out-of-state placement of foster children, the agency’s use of contract nurses, the condition of forensic group homes and the slow pace of computer upgrades that could help the agency improve its efficiency.
Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, said pushing for answers to that letter is a good place to start.
“That would provide an opportunity for some of those specific conversations that have already been identified through the legislative process as a starting point,” Baldwin said.