CHARLESTON — Members of a West Virginia Senate committee decided to lay over a bill calling for an independent audit of the state’s child welfare system after receiving assurances from the new cabinet secretary of the Department of Human Services that he was working on fixes to the system.

The Senate Judiciary Committee laid over Senate Bill 727, mandating a third-party study of West Virginia’s child welfare system. Laying it over gives the committee an opportunity to take the bill back up before the session ends on April 12.

SB 727 would have ordered the state Department of Human Services (DoHS) to select an independent third-party to conduct a comprehensive study of the child welfare system to identify problems and solicit recommendations for both the Legislature and Gov. Patrick Morrisey to consider in future legislation.

“This is really a super-study resolution with some teeth behind the idea of digging into a system…and doing a study to find solutions to fix it,” said the bill’s lead sponsor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha.

The bill specifically called for a review of child welfare laws, rules and regulations; the permanent and temporary child placement system, including foster care and the adoption process; potential ways to reduce the removal rate of children from families; ways to increased efficiencies in the way child welfare services are offered; and ways to improve transparency and accountability for the system.

SB 727 set a deadline of Sept. 1, 2026, for the independent audit to be completed by, and submit its report to lawmakers during legislative interim meetings later that same month. DoHS would have been required to pay for the audit. A fiscal note was requested from DoHS to estimate how much would be needed to be appropriated for an audit, but that fiscal note was not available by the time of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The committee heard from Alex Mayer, the new cabinet secretary of DoHS, who said Monday that he inherited a system with more than 6,047 children in state custody with 480 foster care children in out-of-state placements, 58% of complaints submitted to Child Protective Services (CPS) being accepted, and only 87% of child welfare positions filled.

“I would say that I inherited a system that’s very broken; one that needs a lot of systematic change from how we operate internally to how we execute our business out in the field to how we engage and interact with providers,” Mayer said. “I would say the one thing that has been a blessing in this whole conversation though is that everyone is wanting to come to the table and fix it.”

West Virginia began to see the number of children placed into foster care and the number of CPS complaints increase over the last decade, exacerbated by the state’s systemic poverty and the substance use disorder crisis that has hit the state. The number of foster care children in state custody peaked in April 2020 with 7,433 children. In 2023, 62% of the circuit court cases in the state dealt with child abuse and neglect.

At the end of February, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin dismissed a class action lawsuit brought in 2019 against DoHS – previously the Department of Health and Human Services – and former governor Jim Justice brought by A Better Childhood, Disability Rights West Virginia, and the Shaffer and Shaffer law firm on behalf of 12 foster care children.

That lawsuit alleged that foster children in the state were often housed either in hotels, shelters, institutions or out of state and were subject to abuse and neglect. The lawsuit sought several reforms to the foster care system, including requiring children be placed in foster homes within 30 days, the filing of individualized plans for care within 60 days, ensuring the placement of children in safe homes and facilities with adequate monitoring, the hiring of more case workers and limiting of caseloads, and more.

Last month, two circuit court judges called DoHS to task for its handling of child welfare and foster care cases. Third Circuit Court Judge Timothy Sweeney appointed several DoHS personnel to report to the Ritchie County Courthouse at the beginning of February and receive assignments as CPS workers. But Mayer had a meeting with Sweeney shortly after first arriving in the state from his previous post of chief of Children and Family Services for the South Dakota Department of Social Services.

On Feb. 29, the Associated Press reported that Kanawha County Circuit Court Judge Maryclaire Akers placed DoHS in a one-year “improvement period” under a court-appointed monitor to report on the state’s use of unlicensed facilities – such as 4-H camps and hotels – due to reports of violent incidents involving children in state custody.

DoHS has pointed to improvements to the foster care system, including consolidation of services, pay increases for case workers, broadening the hiring requirements for caseworkers, new software for tracking cases, focusing on placing children in kinship care with family members, expanded programs to keep higher needs children living with family members, new programs for continuum of services and reformed delivery of community-based behavioral health services.

DoHS also recently touted improved CPS vacancy numbers, reducing the CPS vacancy rate from 31% in January 2023 to 16% as of the end of December, with the Youth Services vacancy rate from 31% in January 2023 to 6% in December.

The Bureau for Social Services also implemented a new job classification system and compensation program in order to recruit and retain CPS workers.

After Mayer fielded questions from committee members regarding his plans to address child welfare issues in the state, Stuart offered to move to lay the bill over, pausing action on the bill but not preventing future action on the bill.

“I want to hear you say that this is going to be helpful to your effort. If it’s not going to be helpful to your effort, we’ll lay it on the table,” Stuart said. “In a year from now when you come to us, if this system isn’t improving and fixed, the accountability is on your shoulders.”

“It’s not going to be me fixing it. It’s going to be me bringing all the right people together to fix it, and I think that is what we’re going to do and that’s what I think we started to do,” Mayer said.

“I don’t think I need a study or some third-party come in here and tell me how to do it. What I can tell is what I’ve got in place and what we have moving in that direction is setting is up for that success.”