Wood County commissioners discuss risk pool, Mountwood Park
By BRETT DUNLAP
bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com
PARKERSBURG — Officials with the West Virginia Association of Counties appeared before the Wood County Commission Thursday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the West Virginia Counties Risk Pool of which Wood County was one of the founding members.
The WVCoRP was established July 1, 2007.
Commissioner Blair Couch, who served as a founding board member, said the program has provided savings to the county.
”I don’t know how you put a number on it,” Wood County Administrator Marty Seufer said. ”I would say around $1 million.”
Travelers Insurance was covering the county and every year, the county was seeing an increase in coverage as bad years in other counties impacted the rate Wood County had to pay, Couch said.
”Not only are we a member of the pool, we are an owner,” he said.
It has changed the face of the West Virginia Association of Counties, said Executive Director Patty Hamilton.
”It kicked us up another level as an association,” she said, adding they have people monitoring legislative action and what it will mean to county governments.
Chris Carey, administrator of the risk pool, said the pool has grown to include the majority of the counties in the state for property and liability coverage and many of those counties also participate in the workers’ compensation coverage.
”There are 55 counties in the state and we have 47,” Carey said. ”We also have 105 county-related entities, like Mountwood Park and the Wood County Solid Waste Authority. We have public service districts and we are serving about 150 local governments.”
The organization started with $1.9 million and this year it is around $13 million.
”We have become accredited with the state to be able to provide your law-enforcement officers with up to 14 hours of continuing education training and providing a lot of different services and to help local governments just operate better and keep their people and property safe,” Carey said. ”We have certainly enjoyed Wood County’s support over the last 10 years.”
Hamilton introduced John Adler as her replacement when she officially retires June 30.
The WVCoRP has added coverage for cyber risk, petitions to remove, criminal reimbursement endorsement and notary public. For workers compensation, prompt reporting of claims and potential claims is important, officials said.
In other business:
* Couch announced that Mountwood Park had agreed to accept a mediation settlement agreement worked out with Pressley Ridge.
The agreement was a result of issues left at the White Oak facility where Pressley Ridge had been operating for around 20 years and left last fall when it was no longer possible to maintain its operations there.
”We came to a settlement agreement of $115,000,” Couch said. The Wood County Parks and Recreation Commission voted to approve that agreement Wednesday.
”That is big news for Mountwood,” Couch said. ”Pressley was a great organization and still is. They took care of a lot of kids out at White Oak.”
The new tenant, Reliance Treatment Centers, announced this year its Reliance Ridge facility in West Virginia, which will be going in at White Oak Village. The group is beginning work to turn the facility into a drug addiction treatment center.
Reliance is hoping to have patients at the facility by July, Couch said. It will phase in operations over time to bring the facility up to full operation, Couch said.
The remoteness and privacy of the site are what appealed to the officials from Reliance to serve their clients, Couch said.
”They are here,” he said. ”They are ordering furniture, hiring people and doing all the right things.”
* The commission approved the hiring of Camille Waldron as a full-time administrative assistant at $35,000 a year and Sharolyn A. Johnson as a telecommunicator at $29,034.72 a year.