CHARLESTON — The President of the West Virginia Senate is raising a number of ideas to reform and improve foster care and Child Protective Services in the state with the Department of Health and Human Resources’ interim leadership team.  

In a letter dated Monday and released to the public Tuesday morning, state Senate President Craig Blair wrote a letter to Dr. Jeff Coben, the interim cabinet secretary for DHHR while the department seeks a permanent secretary to replace Bill Crouch whose resignation went into effect on New Year’s Day.  

“As you are aware, the Senate is deeply concerned about the current state of numerous programs housed within the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) and is committed to doing anything in its power to make and facilitate marked improvements, particularly in the area of child welfare,” Blair, R-Berkeley, wrote.  

DHHR has come under greater scrutiny over the last several years. The department – one of the state’s largest – has a budget of $7.5 billion of state and federal dollars and more than 4,900 full-time employees. But despite its funding and resources, DHHR has continued to struggle, particularly in the areas of Child Protective Services and foster care.  

“Over the past six years, the West Virginia Legislature has allocated more funding for child welfare than at any previous point in West Virginia history,” Blair wrote. “In that same timeframe, the Legislature has also passed two major child welfare reform bills and several targeted pieces of legislation to help the DHHR fix our broken Child Protective Services (CPS) system. Unfortunately, DHHR has not made adequate progress for our children and families. In some areas, we have even lost ground.”  

According to DHHR’s Child Welfare Dashboard, there are 6,312 children in foster care as of Dec. 14, including 375 children in out-of-state placement. But only 67 percent of the state’s CPS worker positions are filled, even after DHHR began collapsing more than 1,400 vacant positions to fund a 15 percent pay increase for direct services employees within DHHR, including social workers, CPS workers, and employees within the foster care system.  

Blair criticized DHHR for not being more forthcoming with information requested by lawmakers regarding social services, CPS, and foster care.  

“Making matters worse, the Legislature has struggled to secure answers from DHHR on how to specifically solve these grave problems,” Blair wrote. “DHHR has not even been forthcoming with information about what the difficulties are, and we generally must depend on other stakeholders to inform us of critical issues.”  

Blair welcomed Coben’s appointment as interim DHHR secretary. Coben is the associate vice president for health affairs at West Virginia University and Dean of the School of Public Health. Dr. Clay Marsh, chancellor and executive dean for Health Sciences at WVU, and James Hoyer, a WVU senior associate vice president, will also serve as advisers to Gov. Jim Justice and DHHR as it searches for a new permanent cabinet secretary.  

“I have just received and am reviewing the suggestions outlined in the letter from Senate President Craig Blair and his leadership team,” Coben said in a statement Tuesday. “I am deeply appreciative of their outreach and the many recommendations included therein, and will respond promptly. Many of these recommendations are similar to what our team is reviewing and some are in the process of implementation. I look forward to working collaboratively with the West Virginia Legislature on these critically important issues facing our state.”  

Since taking the helm, Coben has addressed severe shortages of CPS workers in Eastern Panhandle counties. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Trump, R-Morgan, raised concerns last month about the shortage, including no CPS workers assigned for Morgan County. DHHR has since hired an additional two CPS workers and a youth service worker for the Eastern Panhandle.  

DHHR also instituted a $5,000 hiring bonus for CPS and social worker positions in Berkeley, Morgan, and Jefferson counties. Another $2,500 hiring bonus would apply to 26 other counties where there are shortages of CPS workers. In an executive order, retired DHHR employees would be able to return on a limited basis to help fill positions. Also, a hiring freeze put in place by Crouch has been lifted by Coben.  

“Since you, Dr. Clay Marsh, and General James Hoyer have taken the helm at DHHR, there have been some long overdue and positive incremental steps that are applaudable,” Blair wrote. “As you develop these approaches, we appreciate that you have reached out to key members of the Legislature’s staff that have experience in this area of policy. We have to keep working toward.”  

Blair laid out a lengthy list of CPS and child welfare policy options, ranging from short-term items to long-term reforms. Short-term and intermediate-term items include creating a locality pay differential for border county CPS workers to compete with neighboring states, better communication with lawmakers on abuse and neglect statistics of children in DHHR care, assigning CPS workers to counties based on population, and expanding the duties and authority of the foster care ombudsman.  

Long-term public policy items include streamlining CPS duties and outsourcing non-essential job duties, studying the workload of CPS workers and creating a new formula, developing county/regional-based mental health treatment options, developing a predictive tool to provide resources to families to address mental health and trauma before separating children from families, and numerous changes to how abuse and neglect cases are reported and investigated.  

Stephen Baldwin, the former Senate Minority Leader and Democratic lawmaker from Greenbrier County, wondered where Blair and Senate Republicans were last year when efforts were made to improve CPS and foster care. Despite losing re-election in November, Baldwin remains passionate about child welfare issues.  

House Bill 4344, passed last year, included a number of major reforms when it came over to the state Senate from the House of Delegates, including a more robust foster care data dashboard, a mandate for DHHR to develop a program with child placement agencies to ensure that kinship families are assigned to the agencies that can provide support services to the family, a third-party study of centralized intake for abuse and neglect cases.  

Baldwin supported the bill as it came from the House, but the Senate Finance Committee gutted much of the bill after DHHR and Justice said they could create their own foster care dashboard and didn’t need legislation to implement pay raises for CPS.  

“To be crystal clear, this situation was not for lack of effort; it was a deliberate choice by Senate leadership,” Baldwin said. “The Senate put the truck in neutral last March, by killing the only child welfare bill we considered all year. We lost nine months in the meantime. Vacancies continue to be sky-high across the state. Children go unserved every single day. The foster care dashboard we got is unhelpful, as it does not contain the data needed to enact improved policy.   

“While I wish Senate Republicans would have listened last year, I am nonetheless glad they are listening now,” Baldwin continued.  

In his own letter to Coben Tuesday, Baldwin raised further concerns about CPS staff levels in Southern West Virginia. He warned that high caseloads and the number of vacant CPS positions would not be solved by collapsing unfilled positions. In a statement, Coben said he would look into the issues further.  

“Having just received Senator Stephen Baldwin’s letter, a review will be made followed with a prompt and appropriate response,” Coben said. “Our team has been actively working to address concerns related to the child welfare system and will continue to work collaboratively throughout the state to protect our most vulnerable populations. I appreciate Senator Baldwin’s outreach, especially as he wraps up his service to West Virginia.”  

The letter comes as legislative leaders contemplate how to reform DHHR during the 60-day 2023 legislative session that begins Wednesday, Jan. 11. Blair proposed splitting DHHR into three departments last week on WV MetroNews Talkline with host Hoppy Kercheval, and the former House Majority Leader Amy Summers was installed last week as the new chair of the House Health and Human Resources Committee. Summers, R-Taylor, has been a vocal critic of DHHR.