Special session ends with disabilities funding approval amid House, Senate tension

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — The special session has now officially come to end. All requested bills from Gov. Jim Justice passed including providing extra funding to the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services.

This will come in the form of new reserve funds following cuts made to programs for people with disabilities in March. However, that bill specifically created tension and back and forth in the final hours between the House and Senate.

On the final day, the Senate decided instead of taking messages from the House and taking up their rejection of the Senate's version of the bill, they would instead adjourn sine die. This left the House with only one option if they wanted it to pass, and that was to take up the Senate bill they originally rejected and pass it as is, which is what they ended up doing.

“My interpretation was they took their ball and they went home," Del. Amy Summers, R-Taylor, said. "I think the process is better is if we would have had a conference and worked this out between us. This just causes animosity and unnecessary angst and for the people to worry and not know what’s going on. I think we need to honor the process and do it the right way.”

The tensions were over Senate Bill 1001 which would create a $183 million reserve fund for the Department of Human Services and a $5 million reserve for the Department of Health. During regular session in March, programs from health and waiver programs under DoHS saw cuts on the final day of the legislative session including the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities waiver (I/DD).

The cuts to I/DD became the rallying cry for this special session as a rally was held at the Capitol last month calling on the legislature to restore these funds that help families provide the needed care at home for loved ones with disabilities. It was the first item on the special session call.

One of the issues with the waiver program right now, aside from a growing waitlist, is that providers that help these families are struggling to make ends meet and pay their employees a livable wage. This makes it harder on families seeking care like respite.

Because the reserve funds, as written in the legislation, do not come with directives on how to spend, Summers put in an amendment that would have directed money in the reserve fund to go toward increasing provider rates.

She argued that the departments have had funding discrepancies in the past where they have not spent allotted funds on their intended use and that this would at least give some form of directive. That amendment was removed by the Senate on Tuesday as the Senate's position was that the funding is already there for that and this directive could cause cuts in other places.

“To call us heartless and things like that, it’s false," Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, said. "It’s uneducated. They’re unaware of what’s going on because things were even worse before. We’re actually being able to target effectively where the money goes. It’s working.”

Senate Finance Chair Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, said this bill comes with the requirement that the departments present their spending of the reserve funding to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance monthly which is where the added transparency piece is, he said. Though it does not specifically lay out how the funding can be used, Tarr said, the joint committee will be able to catch any forms of misspending or moving money around as he said the DoHS has done in the past.

Tarr said with declining Medicaid enrollment, he expects the money that was already in the budget even with the cuts would be enough to fully fund the waiver programs as is. He said to calm concerns the reserves are just a backup.

“It is trending down," he said of Medicaid enrollment. "By the time we get into fiscal year 2025 it’s going to be less than 514,000 [people]. There’s money there. With what we budget the budget we passed in regular session, the money is there. What this does is it says, 'Alright, if it’s not then here’s a reserve thing that we can go in and fund those things.'"

The reserve funding in a one-time funding allocation that will expire in March of next year.

During a press briefing after the Senate adjourned, Senate leadership said whether or not the departments got the additional funding would rest on the shoulders of the House. Meanwhile in the House, members felt the Senate were the ones who created the issue not calling a conference committee to work on the bill and instead adjourning forcing their hand.

In the crossfire of all of this not knowing what would happen were the I/DD waiver families who depend on this program to care for their loved ones in their homes and get respite and in-home health. Tracy White, who has a child on the waiver program, said during this process it has felt like political ping pong.

“At this point we’re just playing games. We’re playing games with people’s lives and it’s uncalled for, and it’s unnecessary, and it’s absolutely ridiculous," she said.

After the Senate adjourned and the House was left with only the Senate bill, the House was preparing to adjourn as well which would have meant no extra funding.

However, Del. Jonathan Pinson, R-Mason, made a motion to begin the process of reconsidering the Senate bill for passage.

The House had to vote to go back on their previous move to reject and urge the Senate to concede and instead bring it up for reconsideration.

Delegates on both sides of the aisle shared the same concern that the Senate's version was not what they wanted but what they had to do to at least get the extra money to the departments.

“This is not the solution I know that this House wanted but again, this is not a fight between the Senate and the House," Del. JB Akers, R-Kanawha, said. "This is a fight for our constituents and the most vulnerable people in the state of West Virginia.”

Delegates also expressed concern that if they folded to the Senate's wishes that it would continue to set a precedent for adjourning instead of compromising.

“How many times are we going to do this where they go in there, they do what they’re going to do, adjourn sine die and we’re left with this with absolutely no choice?" Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said. "Because they’re going to keep doing it because it’s working.”

Summers said just before the House adjourned that even though it was not specifically directed in the bill, she said she hopes DoHS will take it upon themselves to bump up provider rates.

“This reserve fund isn’t the right way to go about it, but it’s what we’ve been given and we’re not going to let people suffer because we don’t like the way it’s going to be handled. There will be a new governor. There will be new people and just always have to keep hope that people are going to do the right thing," Summers said.

Justice released a statement on Tuesday about the special session saying he was "extremely disappointed" in the behavior of legislators over the course of the session. He went on to call the session a win for West Virginians. It read, in part:

If the rhetoric from a few members wasn’t bad enough, the special interests and the lobbyists came in and tried to hijack things that could have truly hurt our people. I will always stand rock solid with all the people that need the Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities Waiver–I was the Governor that cleared the waitlist. And I’ll go on record now and say that we need even more funding for our most vulnerable.