West Virginia Senate president, teachers’ unions square off at PEIA Taskforce meeting
CHARLESTON — A tweet Tuesday by the president of the West Virginia Senate was a topic for two teachers’ union representatives during a PEIA Taskforce subcommittee meeting Wednesday morning.
The Public Outreach Subcommittee met Wednesday at the state Capitol Building. The subcommittee was tasked with holding town hall meetings across the state to collect the thoughts and opinions of state employees on how to best shore up the state-run health insurance program.
The subcommittee conducted online surveys to get feedback from state employees. Solutions raised by public employees for funding PEIA include raising coal and natural gas severance tax rates or increasing sin taxes on soda, tobacco and alcohol.
“Our charter is to recommend to the cost committee, as well as the planning committee, what we heard from the participants,” said state Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson. “We may not like it and we may not agree with it, but that’s our charter. Before they can develop a plan or a cost structure, they need to know what they’re shooting at.”
Carmichael asked Christine Campbell, president of the American Federation of Teachers chapter in West Virginia, about what her union sees for PEIA in the future and if it supports turning PEIA into a universal health care system. The question came a day after Carmichael took to Twitter to criticize a resolution voted on at the American Federation of Teachers annual convention held over the weekend.
“People affiliated with the AFT and others have wanted universal health care, that’s the mantra of the AFT,” Carmichael said. “If that’s what we’re going to do here, then that’s a pretty easy recommendation to the cost committee: find the money for universal health care.”
“We’re talking about a national group that a state group works under,” Campbell said. “We do what we do based on the needs of our states and what our membership is looking for. We do what’s best for the participants of PEIA.”
“To say this is going to be free is not realistic,” said Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association. “I think the majority of comments didn’t say it had to be free. I think a majority of the comments said we need to figure out how to contain the cost rather than shift it to the employees.”
At the national AFT convention, delegates voted on a resolution requiring the union to only endorse candidates who support a list of “demands” that include: single-payer health care/Medicare for all; free college for all; universal/full-day and cost-free child care; doubling the per-pupil expenditures for low-income K-12 districts; and taxing the rich to fully fund the specific federal education programs.
Responding to this resolution in a series of tweets Tuesday, Carmichael issued a challenge to Democrats to reject the AFT’s “Obama-styled socialist agenda.”
“AFT’s socialist agenda doesn’t represent values of WV families, students & educators,” Carmichael tweeted. “Republican Leadership in WV gave teachers, school service personnel & state employees their largest pay increase in state history & made other major investments in education, all without raising taxes.”
The tweets drew strong reaction from teachers, union leaders and Democrats. Some teacher union members criticized Republican lawmakers — who hold the majority in the Legislature — for taking credit for pay raises passed during the 2018 legislative session that only came about after thousands of teachers rallied for days at the Capitol.
“Teachers, service personnel and state employees ARE the unions,” Campbell tweeted in response to Carmichael Tuesday. “Expecting candidates to support workers’ issues isn’t radical; it’s imperative for raising the bar in West Virginia elections.”
The West Virginia Legislature passed a $4.38 billion general revenue budget in March for fiscal year 2019. That budget, which went into effect at the beginning of July, includes a 5-percent pay raise across the board for teachers, school service personnel, State Police and public employees.
Gov. Jim Justice originally proposed a one-year 1 percent pay raise for teachers in his budget bill and during his State of the State address. A Senate bill, SB 267, provided a 1 percent pay raise for teachers for five years, a 1 percent pay increase for school service personnel and State Police staff for two years.
In the House version of SB 267, lawmakers upped the 1 percent to 2 percent for the first year, and 1 percent for the second third, and fourth years. In the version that passed the Legislature, the Senate changed it once again, this time 2 percent in the first year for teachers, school service personnel and State Police; 1 percent in 2nd and 3rd years for teachers; 1 percent in second year for service personnel and State Police.
SB 267 was signed by Justice on Feb. 21, days before teachers walked out of classrooms to start a strike over a 16-day period. After taking up another bill to deal with pay raises, the House and Senate went back and forth before finally settling on 5 percent pay raises for all executive branch state employees paid out of the general revenue fund. The strike ended March 6.
During this time, Justice froze PEIA premium and coverage levels, and the Legislature put another $30 million into PEIA. Justice also formed the PEIA Taskforce to look at long-term fixes for PEIA.
In June, Justice asked the PEIA Finance Board to raise wage tiers to keep the pay raises from pushing state employees into higher PEIA premium brackets.
The Public Outreach Subcommittee will have a report for the full PEIA Taskforce by Aug. 1 on the feedback from state employees.