A federal judge’s blunt assessment of the problems with West Virginia’s child welfare system hung over state senators as they applied pressure on the new secretary of human services to improve.
“Constitutional limits prevent the court from crafting public policy and administering state agencies. West Virginia’s foster care system has cycled through inaction, bureaucratic indifference, shocking neglect, and temporary fixes for years,” U.S. District Judge Goodwin wrote.
“The blame squarely lies with West Virginia state government. When elected officials fail, the ballot box is the remedy.”
Goodwin wrote those words in an order dismissing a longstanding federal lawsuit over the conditions of West Virginia’s child welfare system. But the text of his order explained that he was not dismissing the case on the merits; instead, he concluded that the responsibility for improvement lies with elected leaders, not a judge.
“So Judge Goodwin and I, just so you know, don’t always agree on everything. But we agree on that 100 percent,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, said during a committee meeting Monday afternoon.
The Judiciary Committee’s discussion came through focus on Senate Bill 727, legislation sponsored by Stuart, to direct a comprehensive, independent study of West Virginia’s child welfare system.
The bill mandates that the Department of Human Services hire an external third party to conduct the study identifying shortcomings in current laws and processes — and exploring ways to improve.
The study focusing on issues like child placement and family reunification, efficiency, and accountability would have been due for completion by September 1, 2026.
Except that as senators pressed the new secretary of Human Services, Alex Mayer, he promised that the agency would work toward improvement and suggested that no study would be necessary.
That prompted Stuart to table the bill, but only after applying pressure on the Department of Human Services to do better.
“When it comes to study resolution like this, which has a supercharged study resolution with dollars behind it to give you the heft you need to come back to us and ask for solutions, I want to hear you say that this is going to be helpful to your effort,” Stuart told Mayer.
“If it’s not going to be helpful, your effort we’ll lay it on the table and a year from now, when you come to us, if this system isn’t improving and fixed, accountability is on your shoulders.”
Stuart again asked if such a study would be helpful for leverage — “or would you prefer it just be you?”
Mayer, who is one month into his role with the incoming administration of Gov. Patrick Morrisey, responded that the team he’s been putting together at the human services agency has already started work on West Virginia’s many challenges.
“And so I don’t think I need a study or have some third party come in here and tell me how to do it. What I can tell you is that what we’ve got in place and what we have moving in that direction is setting us up for that success,” Mayer told Stuart.
“It will take time, but I think, you know the timeline that’s laid out in this study or this bill, by that time, I think we’ll have meaningful change within the system by then. And I don’t need a study to do it, and I think we can do it and accomplish it without the bill that you have in front of you.”
Stuart said the responsibility would belong to Mayer then.
“If this system isn’t improving and fixed, accountability is on your shoulders.”
More than 6,000 West Virginia children are in state custody, according to the child welfare dashboard.
The exchanges between senators and the executive branch’s top human services official came right after a flurry of scrutiny by several judges.
Although Judge Goodwin was dismissing a sprawling child welfare case because he concluded the judicial branch does not have the authority to assume control of the state’s foster care agency, his words were unsparing about the condition of the system: “I know that there are children who deeply suffer in the custody of the State.”
That foster care lawsuit, filed in 2019 on behalf of thousands of children, alleged rampant issues with institutionalization, moves of children in state custody outside of West Virginia, lack of available community-based mental health services and overextended caseworkers.
Other judges, particularly at the local level, have had a series of collisions with the child welfare system.
Earlier this month, Kanawha Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers ordered that a monitor be put in place to oversee state child protective services placements in hotels and camps after a 12-year-old boy in state care attempted suicide in a hotel room.
Last month, Pleasants Circuit Judge Timothy Sweeney ordered state officials to serve as child protective services workers because of severe understaffing.
Over almost two hours at the state Capitol, senator after senator pushed Mayer for better results.
Laura Wakim Chapman, chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, asked how lawmakers could help.
“Do you have anything that we can do in this session that you think will make it the most immediate help to you and your staff, to help increase hiring, to help make sure that these children are safe?” asked Chapman, R-Ohio.
Mayer responded by pointing to the number of vacancies the agency has had — and saying it needs to hire staff, clear vacancies, provide training and ensure accountability.
“So, you know, I think that’s where we’re starting, and that’s the foundation we’re establishing,” he said. “So I wouldn’t see, at least in my time here, that there’s anything additional that I would see the agency needing from a legislative standpoint, in terms of, you know, additional things that would allow us to do the work that we’re doing.”
Senator Vince Deeds, R-Greenbrier, said the agency needs to be accountable for hard truths about the condition of the child welfare system.
“And so I just challenge you really,” Deeds said, “get away from the sunshine puppies and drill down into it.”
The discussion return to Stuart, who said that all over West Virginia children are being warehoused without knowing if anyone loves them. He said the problems are complex and involve generation after generation.
“Godspeed as you fix these problems,” Stuart said.
“I’ll be watching, as well every mom and dad in West Virginia, because at least now I know there’s some accountability — because I didn’t know where it was at. Now it’s on Alex Mayer, who had the offer of help and chose not to take it. It’s on this administration.”
Stuart concluded by telling the human services secretary, “Your job is to fix this, not tweak it, not on the margins, not make us feel better, not to puff to us up with flowery words. It’s to fix the system for all those kids.”
And as he laid over the bill, Stuart said “I want our chief executive, I want our governor, to take a look at some of the remarks from this hearing. I want our governor, who’s been given an invitation from this body to participate in fixing our child welfare system, to accept our hand in fixing it.”