Photo Courtesy/WV Legislative Photography State Sen. Brian Helton praised Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s efforts at executive branch consolidation during Thursday’s Senate Government Organization Committee meeting.

CHARLESTON — Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s bills to consolidate several executive branch agencies and to remove the traditional civil service protections and grievance procedures for new state employees in multiple departments received nods of approval from the Senate Government Organization Committee Thursday.

The committee recommended three bills for passage to the full Senate Thursday morning: House bills 2008 and 2009, both reorganizing the executive branch; and House Bill 2013, transferring certain state employees to classified exempt service.

HB 2008 would return the Department of Economic Development to the Department of Commerce as a division. The current cabinet-level position of secretary of the Department of Economic Development would become an executive director position beneath Department of Commerce Cabinet Secretary Matt Herridge.

A strike-and-insert amendment adopted by the Senate Government Organization Committee Thursday would remove a change made by the House of Delegates transferring law enforcement officers within the Division of Natural Resources within the Department of Commerce to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Those provisions were taken out of the bill over concerns that that transfer would not work as intended,” explained the legal counsel for the committee. “The concern there was not so much for DNR itself, but with those police officers…There were questions about federal funding that they receive, things that require in code that certain funding be used for specific fish and wildlife purposes, so that all was dropped.”

The Department of Economic Development and Department of Tourism were formerly divisions within the Department of Commerce. But former governor Jim Justice and the Legislature split off the West Virginia Development Office and the Division of Tourism from the Department of Commerce in 2021, with both becoming cabinet-level departments.

HB 2009 would eliminate the Department of Arts, Culture and History (WVDACH) and transfer its divisions, boards, and agencies to the Department of Tourism. Morrisey retained Chelsea Ruby to continue leading the Department of Tourism.

In 2018, Justice renamed the Department of Education and the Arts to the Department of Arts, Culture and History, elevating former Division of Culture and History commissioner Randall Reid-Smith to the new cabinet-level title of curator. The Legislature changed Reid-Smith’s title last year to secretary. Reid-Smith retired effective Feb. 14.

“I personally have worked with Chelsea Ruby in the Department of Tourism. They do a fantastic job,” said state Sen. Brian Helton, R-Fayette. “I think it’s a great savings for our state. I think it’s going to help us be a lot more effective, a lot more efficient, so I speak in favor of the bill.”

Both HB 2008 and 2009 would prohibit new hires or those promoted within the reorganized departments of Commerce and Tourism from being protected by classified civil service protections beginning in July.

The third bill recommended by the committee Thursday, HB 2013, would exempt future state employees and current state employees who transfer or are promoted within the Bureau of Senior Services, the Department of Administration, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Revenue, and the Department of Veterans’ Assistance from the classified civil service system and state employee grievance procedures.

All three bills were introduced on behalf of Morrisey and are part of his platform to right-size state government. This effort also included several executive orders during his first week in office in January to review spending by departments and agencies, consolidate and remove redundancies, and to streamline government services.