CHARLESTON, W.Va. — There will be some special sessions for state lawmakers in the coming months, exactly when those will happen remains to be seen.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey indicated at a recent bill signing that he expects discussions to now intensify with legislative leaders on at least three topics, PEIA, School Aid Formula and taxes.
“My goal is to work with them (legislative leaders) on the dates (for a special session) and be collaborative in advance of the process so that when legislators come in that it can be an effective and productive special session,” Morrisey said.
House Speaker Roger Hanshaw said Morrisey is right.
“We’ll do that collaboratively and once we get something we are confident in that’s when we’ll come do it,” Hanshaw, R-Clay, told MetroNews.
Senate President Randy Smith said the deck is now cleared from the bills considered in the regular legislative session which makes the timing right to work on more complicated issues.
“When you only have 60 days and you’ve got 240 bills and most of the time it’s 240 topics–it’s hard to focus on one issue,” Smith, R-Preston, said. “I think the governor is right to hold off on that until we can have 100 percent of our focus.”
State workers health insurance, PEIA, and the way the state funds country school districts through the School Aid Formula have been the most talked about possibilities for special session. Both are large complicated issues with significant financial pulls on the state budget.
PEIA
Morrisey said he wants to soon sit down and meet with the “relative groups and stakeholders” on the PEIA issue. State workers are being asked to pay more for health care with both premiums and deductibles set to increase by 14 percent on July 1.
Morrisey recently named Senior Deputy Attorney General Brent Wolfingbarger as the new executive director. He helped lead the Medicaid Fraud Unit when Morrisey was state Attorney General.
“With an impressive professional background and deep experience working in West Virginia, I have every confidence in Brent Wolfingbarger to lead PEIA and tackle the challenges currently facing the agency,” Morrisey said.
Hanshaw said PEIA needs to be restructured. He said some House committees have been working on the issue. Smith said the same is happening with the Senate. He said Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, has been researching a prescription drug ;piece that could potentially save the state a lot of money.
Smith said any decisions they make on PEIA will be a challenge.
“It’s hard to fund something that just keeps on moving,” he sad. “We give it 200-million this year and next year it needs 300-million. We have to make some fixes to try and plug the holes that are
draining it.”
School Aid Funding Formula
Lawmakers will be looking to answer the question whether the current funding plan supports a “thorough and efficient” public education system called for in the state Constitution.
It needs reworked, Hanshaw said.
“It’s time to do that. Our county school systems don’t look like what they looked 40 years ago and it’s time to think about how we fund them correctly,” Hanshaw said.
The current formula focuses a lot on student enrollment. Lawmakers learned during a February presentation that school enrollment has dropped by 30,000 students during the past seven years. The state is also pumping millions into the school choice Hope Scholarship.
“School choice is a big issue in the state,” Smith said. “A lot of people are taking their kids out of public schools but our responsibility is to fund public schools and that’s what we have to do and we want to, most of us.”
Timing
Traditionally the most successful special sessions have been those where a lot of work is done on the particular issue before lawmakers arrive in Charleston. Hanshaw said it will be wise to use a similar approach on these issues.
“Those are things that require some pretty thoughtful consideration–not something you do on a knee-jerk special call,” he said.
Morrisey said special sessions are set up for this approach.
“You can take on pretty tough topics and you can use the time in advance of the session to not only educate yourself and educate the public but also to develop some consensus around the policy,” Morrisey said. “We need to take the time and do it right.”
Hanshaw said he’s confident the legislature can tackle the issues no matter how complicated.
“That’s what do here, right? We take on big issues. We run a sovereign state of this union here–that’s the job that we’re expected to do and just because something is big and complicated doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it on,” he said.
Lawmakers are next scheduled to meet for interim committee meets June 22-24 at Stonewall Resort.