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West Virginia Senate passes higher education funding formula bill, Meghan’s Law, vaccine employment protections

Senate President Craig Blair reads the vote total for SB 550, creating a performance-based funding formula for public higher education institutions. (Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography)

CHARLESTON — The West Virginia Senate voted Thursday on multiple bills on Day 30 of the 60-day legislative session dealing with taxpayer funding of higher education, protections for workers fired while seeking exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines, and a bill aimed at helping students with eating disorders.

The Senate passed Senate Bill 550, relating to funding for higher education institutions, in a 28-6 vote Thursday afternoon.

SB 550 would allow the state Higher Education Policy Commission and the Community and Technical College System of West Virginia to develop a performance-based funding formula to determine how funding from the state’s general revenue fund is distributed to the state’s 10 four-year colleges and universities, and the nine two-year community and technical colleges.

The HEPC/WVCTCS has been working on a new funding model with stakeholders for the last two years, with discussions accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic. All institutions of higher learning took a financial hit due to decreasing enrollment and other reduced streams of income.

The model being developed, based on a similar model in Tennessee, would base public funding to colleges/universities and community and technical colleges on several metrics, including credit hours, the number of degrees or certificates awarded, the number of graduates working in the state, academic research and more.

Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Patricia Rucker said Senate Bill 550 should have been referred to her committee. (Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography)

However, the Senate Finance Committee changed SB 550, leaving the funding formula part of the bill intact but allowing exemptions from HEPC oversight for new college programs that would be incentivized by the new funding formula. It also says that four-year higher education institutions have to have a state appropriation that is 40 percent less than the operating expense of the college or university in order to be exempt from HEPC oversight.

West Virginia University, Marshall University, and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine are already statutorily exempt from oversight. Shepherd University and Fairmont State University have administrative exemptions.

An amendment offered by Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, would have stripped the exemption language added by the Senate Finance Committee. The amendment failed by voice vote and a motion to reconsider the vote on the amendment failed 22-12.

“I felt that it did not belong in a funding formula bill,” Rucker said after the floor session. “Essentially, it should have been in a separate bill and it should have run through the Education Committee.”

SB 550 now heads to the House of Delegates, where a similar bill, House Bill 4008, was recommended for passage by the House Education Committee and is awaiting consideration by the House Finance Committee.

The Senate passed Senate Bill 576, relating to unemployment insurance and COVID-19 vaccination requirements. The bill passed 29-5 with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Trump, R-Morgan, and Vice Chairman Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, voting no. The bill was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday but without a recommendation for passage.

SB 576 states that a worker who leaves their job due to a rejection of a religious or medical exemption for a COVID-19 vaccination requirement would not be considered to have voluntarily left their job. The bill would make these workers eligible for unemployment benefits.

Trump said the language in SB 576 had originally been amended into Senate Bill 2, a bill that reduced the number of weeks one could receive unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 12 weeks. Trump said it was better to have the provision considered as its own bill.

“If this is enacted it will make persons who leave employment over COVID-19 vaccines eligible for unemployment benefits,” Trump said. “The committee on the judiciary took no position on passage of the bill, but the committee did recommend it to the floor for the consideration of the full Senate.”

Sen. Mark Maynard, R-Wayne, was the lead sponsor of the bill. He said the bill was an important tool for helping unemployed workers who felt they had no other recourse than to quit rather than get vaccinated.

“When the mandates started rolling in, they had to make a decision,” Maynard said. “This bill … merely defends some of those who want to opt out of vaccination.”

The bill also received support from the majority of the 11-member Senate Democratic Caucus. Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, called it a worker’s rights bill.

“I don’t think this bill is about COVID; this bill is about worker’s rights,” Baldwin said. “It basically protects workers to ensure they have transitional employment support, just like we should have given employees transitional support who are seasonal workers in Senate Bill 2.”

SB 576 now heads to the House of Delegates.

The Senate also passed House Bill 4074, requiring schools to provide eating disorder and self-harm training for teachers and students. The bill passed 33-1, with state Sen. Owens Brown, D-Ohio, being the lone nay vote.

HB 4074, also known as “Meghan’s Law,” is named for Meghan Clark, the 15-year-old daughter of Delegate Wayne Clark, R-Jefferson. The bill requires educators to undergo training to identify the signs of eating disorders and self-harm every three years. It would also require middle and high school students annually to undergo similar training and education.

Rucker read a statement from Clark encouraging senators to support the bill. Clark’s daughter was recently treated for an eating disorder after a gymnastics coach allegedly called her fat.

“Today, we can help thousands of maturing children in the State of West Virginia by passing Meghan’s Law,” Rucker read on Clark’s behalf. “Today there are young girls and boys in our school system suffering from eating disorders and self-harm and they are going unnoticed. We hope that passage of this will prevent that from continuing and bring relief and resolution.”

“Teen suicide and self-harm is so pervasive in our country and our state that we need to move forward legislation like this,” said Senate Minority Whip Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, thanking Rucker for running the bill.

Brown said he was voting no on the bill, raising concerns about teacher liability should a student injure themselves or commit suicide and the teacher or staff member misses the signs.

“I can just see so much liability here if a teacher does not for some reason, or an employee, does not identify a student that may harm themselves,” Brown said. “Because of this requirement, a teacher in the system would probably be held liable.”

HB 4074 will head back to the House so the body can concur or reject changes made to the bill by the Senate. If the House concurs, the bill will head to Gov. Jim Justice.

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.

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