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West Virginia House approves bill allowing for closed briefings of abuse cases

House Health Committee Vice Chairwoman Heather Tully said Thursday that House Bill 4595 would provide lawmakers more oversight over actions involving abuse and death of children. (Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography)

CHARLESTON — The Legislature’s oversight commission overseeing West Virginia’s three new health and human resources departments could soon be able to receive close-door briefings on sensitive cases with a law passed by the House of Delegates Thursday.

House Bill 4595, relating to the Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability, passed the House 96-0. The bill now heads to the state Senate.

The bill would allow the Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability (LOCHHRA) to meet in executive session to hear details of specific Child Protective Services cases, nursing home abuse, intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) waiver issues, Adult Protective Services matters, and abuse cases in state-owned hospitals.

HB 4595 would allow LOCHRRA to review internal documents and hear testimony for confidential cases on a limited basis. The bill requires the commission be informed of cases involving the death or serious injury of a minor or adult in state custody or direct care within 30 days, or a referral to the commission that has occurred within six months, though personally identifying information would be omitted.

LOCHRRA, created in 1995 by the Legislature, consists of six delegates and six state senators. It was created to provide oversight to the state Department of Health and Human Resources, but that department was split into three departments effective Jan. 1: the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Health Facilities.

“It is a tragedy that we’ve gotten to the point that we feel that we need to do this, but the idea is to help us write better law,” said House Health Committee Chairwoman Amy Summers, R-Taylor.

“We’re only here 60 days once a year, so we need to be able to have more real-time information on things that are confidential to see if there are policy breakdowns that we need to address.”

The bill also creates a new program performance evaluation process for the three new departments, with the creation of performance goals between LOCHRRA and the departments over the next few years. LOCHRRA will use the performance evaluations to create annual reports to the Legislature to help craft better legislation.

House Health Committee Vice Chairwoman Heather Tully, R-Nicholas, said the bill was needed due to several high-profile incidents over the years involving the abuse and death of children when there is evidence of prior complaints to CPS or the death of foster children in state custody.

“I really felt as though we got stonewalled and we did not get the information that we really needed to figure out where the major issue happened and where our failures happened that resulted in the death of this child,” Tully said. “I think that this really is one way we can maybe get some more information to make real time decisions for these children that could be in potential peril.”

An amendment to the bill offered in the House Judiciary Committee also now allows LOCHRRA to refer cases for further investigation to the Legislature’s Commission on Special Investigations. The bill enjoyed the support of both parties.

“I do think it’s incredibly unfortunate that a bill like this is necessary, but unfortunately it is,” said House Health Committee Minority Chairman Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha. “Too often we’re trying to get information from many of these state agencies under this current administration. We don’t get answers.”

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

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