Photo by Steven Allen Adams Supporters of increasing the personal care reimbursement program rally outside the House of Delegates chamber as lawmakers debated a bill giving spending authority to the Department of Human Services to fund that program and others Monday.

CHARLESTON — The West Virginia Legislature spent most of the day Monday trying to wrap up the first special session of 2024 to restore funding cut from the budget bill passed earlier this year and address other needs. But disagreements between the House of Delegates and state Senate dragged lawmakers into a third day.

The Senate adjourned Monday night until noon Tuesday, while the House adjourned until 1 p.m. after the two bodies came to loggerheads over a bill returning cut funding to the Department of Health (DoH) and the Department of Human Services (DoHS).

Most of the action was in the House of Delegates, which passed one House bill and amended two state Senate bills, passing 12 Senate bills Monday night.

Much of the focus was on Senate Bill 1001 that would restore more than $5 million for DoH and more than $183 million for DoHS. The bill creates reserve funds in both departments for the restored funding.

SB 1001 would allow the secretaries of the departments to transfer money out of a new reserve fund to provide money for other line items, such as Medicaid and the intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) waiver program. But the bill included no specific directives requiring DoHS to transfer those monies to those programs.

The bill would require the secretaries to file monthly reports to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Government and Finance to explain any transfers. It also would prevent any expenditures from these appropriations after March 30, 2025, expiring any remaining funding in those line items back to the general revenue fund.

However, the House attempted to provide provisions through an amendment to require DoHS to use some of the $183 million for specific line items. The House version of SB 1001 would have required DoHS use $10.3 million to increase provider rates for Title 19 aged and disabled waiver program, $10.7 million to increase provider rates for the IDD waiver program, $6.6 million to increase provider rates for personal care services, and $135,000 to increase provider rates for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) waiver program.

“We heard testimony in (the House Health and Human Resources Committee) multiple times … that the waiver services were in crisis due to not having enough workers,” said House Health Committee Chairwoman Amy Summers, R-Taylor. “We just want to ensure in this amendment that the rates … are provided to those providers because we all know that if we don’t have the workers to take care of individuals in these settings, then we will take care of these individuals in state psych hospitals and nursing homes which are going to be much more costly to the state.”

The Senate amended the bill Monday night to put it back to the version of SB 1001 that passed the Senate Sunday. A successful amendment in the House version of SB 1001 that the Senate concurred with would prohibit DoHS from transferring funds from the home and community-based waiver program to any other appropriation in DoHS.

Instead of concurring with the Senate’s attempt to strip the Summers amendment from SB 1001, the House refused to concur in an 86-0 vote and adjourned for the night.

“We’ve allowed the Senate to strip it back out. And we’re just supposed to roll over once again at the end of session – whether it’s the regular session or the special session,” said Del. Michael Hite, R-Berkeley. “I’ve only been here two years while I’m getting tired of it … We roll over all the time. It’s time to say no. Reject this. Go to conference. Tell them to fix it.”

“We as a body have the ability to set that policy and say, ‘yes, you will take that money and we will fund those,’ because otherwise what are we doing here,” asked Del. Joey Garcia, D-Marion. “We don’t have to stop now. We can reject this … And if they don’t want to do that over in the Senate, then that’s on them. Not on us.”

An attempt was also made by Summers during Monday morning’s House Finance Committee meeting and by House Minority Leader Pro Tempore Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, in a floor amendment Monday evening to use a portion of the $183 million for DoHS for funding an estimated $23 million shortfall for childcare subsidies needed by Sept. 1.

The amendment failed both in committee and on the floor Monday. While another special session is possible in August for further appropriations of available surplus tax dollars following the end of the 2024 fiscal year at the end of June, Summers and Young said the funding can’t wait, otherwise childcare centers could start closing their doors by the end of August.

“I would like to restore that confidence to the families and the providers that we’re going to be able to pay for that through the entire budget year,” Summers said. “We could address this in August, but I don’t see any reason to do that when we could take care of it now and relieve a lot of anxiety.”

“We have to fund childcare more so because of a federal rule, and if we don’t do it, we’re going to lose 2,000 childcare spots on September 1st,” Young said. “I’ve been told we may be taking it up in August, but that’s not good enough for me. We have lost nearly 300 childcare spots in the last three weeks alone. That’s 300 families that can’t go to work now. I think we need to make sure our childcare folks are taken care of.”

In a statement Monday night, House Speaker Roger Hanshaw said he supports finding funding to address the childcare reimbursement issue but did not believe that tapping into the $183 million or using surplus tax dollars would be a good long-term solution.

“The attempt to divert reserve funds that had already been agreed upon for other critical health and welfare needs simply was not the correct process for funding childcare right now,” said Hanshaw, R-Clay. “And neither is allocating one-time, temporary, surplus money. It is crucial that we create and maintain a sustainable, enrollment-based childcare system that meets the needs of families and employers. I remain committed to ensuring we carve out the proper approach to achieving this significant goal many of us share.”

The state Senate did concur with House amendments to Senate Bill 1015. The bill requires deposits into the Rainy Day Fund up to 20% of the average of the base appropriations made in annual budget bills for the three prior fiscal years. The approved House amendment to SB 1015 removes the Department of Revenue’s discretion to deposit more than then 20% of the three-year average of prior general revenue appropriations into the Rainy Day Fund.

SB 1015 would reduce the amount of tax revenue surplus that must be deposited into the Rainy Day Fund, which currently sits at more than $1.2 billion. State tax officials estimate the state will end the current fiscal year with more than $800 million.

Gov. Jim Justice called lawmakers into special session in a proclamation issued Friday. One of the goals of the special session was to restore appropriations that were cut by the Legislature in March in Senate Bill 200, the budget bill for fiscal year 2025 beginning in July.

Lawmakers trimmed down the budget from the governor’s recommended $5.265 billion general revenue budget to $4.996 billion, 5% less than the governor’s version, after it was discovered that the state might have to put in $465 million into education spending to meet requirements to spend federal COVID-19 funds. The state received its second waiver from that provision by the U.S. Department of Education in April.

Lawmakers also passed bills providing $50 million for an agricultural lab at West Virginia State University in Institute; $150 million for Division of Highways paving projects; $10 million for the Posey Perry Emergency Food Fund; $27.3 million for the Hope Scholarship program; $2 million for contract nursing costs at veteran’s facilities; $2.8 million for the Department of Arts, Culture, and History; and spending authority for the Office of Technology.

While the House did pass Senate Bill 2011 – providing $83 million for higher education, including $51 million for grant programs due to FAFSA delays and $32 million to cover PEIA 80/20 employer/employee match costs – it did not make the bill effective from passage, putting the bill at risk unless it passes the House version of the bill and makes that bill effective from passage.

Other bills passed Monday include allowing state political party executive committees to determine how to select electors to cast the state’s Electoral College votes for president; and a bill that requires residential substance use treatment facilities to be accredited and licensed by the state by Jan. 1, 2025, otherwise they would not be able to receive reimbursements from the state.