CHARLESTON — Gov. Jim Justice and Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Bill Crouch defended the results of a $1 million review of the massive agency after lawmakers attacked the report as lackluster.

Speaking during a virtual COVID-19 briefing with reporters from the Capitol, Justice said the report his office released last week by the McChrystal Group on an organizational assessment and strategic plan for DHHR will be implemented.

“We went out and got a credible, great report,” Justice said. “We didn’t tell them what kind of outcome to come up with, nothing. We told them to give us the best recommendations, period. And that’s what we did. Let’s absolutely analyze and work at it and try to make things better.”

The McChrystal Group report recommends agency leaders develop detailed action plans and objectives; create an executive leadership team consisting of additional deputy secretaries and integration teams; invest in leadership development beginning at executive level down to bureaus; improve communication and collaboration; prioritize administrative process improvements.

“They looked at the structure of DHHR, but they also looked at the problems in West Virginia and looked at what West Virginians need in regard to DHHR services out there,” Crouch said. “I’m very pleased with this. We’ve already started figuring out how we’re going to implement this. We’re moving immediately as the Governor has directed me to do and we’re going to get this done.”

The report also recommends keeping DHHR as one department instead of splitting it into two. House Bill 4020, passed during the 2022 legislative session, would have separated DHHR into the Department of Health and the Department of Human Resources. But Gov. Justice vetoed that bill in March, instead calling for an independent top-down review of DHHR.

“We were shooting from the hip, we really were,” Justice said of HB 4020 Monday. “We went out and got the very, very best in the entire country…and with all of them (the McChrystal Group) spent hours and hours digging in every facet you could imagine. Outside groups, inside groups, internally and whatever it may be. Then they came with a report.”

If this report would have come back and said, ‘split it up,’ I would have been all for that in every way,” Justice continued. “But to just do it for the sake of doing it so we can get up on a soapbox and cheer, and really and truly at the end of the day we may blow our own legs off, I’m not there.”

DHHR’s current fiscal year budget of $7.5 billion includes both state and federal funding. DHHR expenses make up more than a quarter of the state’s $4.6 billion general revenue budget and is the second-largest expenditure behind public education. The agency has more than 4,900 full-time employees and is at the forefront of multiple healthcare and social issues, from the opioid epidemic to the foster care crisis.

Lawmakers were briefed on the DHHR report Sunday during the first day of November legislative interim meetings at Cacapon Resort State Park in Berkeley Springs. The reaction of lawmakers to the report’s findings was not positive, considering DHHR’s contract with the McChrystal Group cost more than $1 million.

“The report is titled a top-to-bottom review…top-to-bottom, to me, means all encompassing,” said Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley. “This does not reach the goal of the title…Frankly, this looks like a $1 million dollar waste of our taxpayer dollars on what we’ve got sitting in front of us.”

“I’ve been around since 2002. I’ve watched this go over and over and over, the concerns regardless of party or who was running the administration,” Blair continued. “We’ve gotten the same results over and over and over by doing the same thing. From what I can interpret here, you’re saying throw more money and throw more time, but keep doing the same thing.”

“We’ve tried all of those things in the past,” said House Majority Leader Amy Summers, R-Taylor. “We’ve had three deputy secretaries. We had integrated teams. That’s where I’m worried about the crux of the report…we’re disappointed in the meat of the report.”

“Whether or not you believe or think the report is great or don’t think the report is great, you’ve got to at least acknowledge that that effort was absolutely made by a great, very credible group,” Justice said. “The effort was made to try to come up with resolutions and solutions that could really help us in DHHR. That’s all there is to it.”

Instead of answering a question about how the report’s recommendations would be implemented, Justice went on a rant attacking Republican lawmakers for taking their frustrations for the defeat of Amendment 2 out on DHHR and the McChrystal Group. Amendment 2 would have allowed the Legislature to exempt tangible personal property taxes. Justice barnstormed the state in opposition to the amendment, which voters rejected last week.

“We need to behave as adults and not behave as just irrational children,” Justice said. “There have been age-old problems at DHHR that have been dealt with by governor after governor after governor. We now have a plan. We now have a report from a very reputable group, and what we need to do is implement it and implement it right this second as fast as we possibly can.”