THE FINAL DAY – House Speaker Roger Hanshaw gavels the House of Delegates into session Saturday morning. -- Photo Courtesy/WV Legislative Photography

CHARLESTON — The 2023 regular session of the West Virginia Legislature ended at midnight Saturday with many of the priorities set by Republican leaders at the beginning of the year clearing the finish line, though the Democratic minority left disappointed.

The 60-day session that began Jan. 11 saw more than 225 bills out of a total 2,317 introduced bills complete the legislative process and go to the desk of Gov. Jim Justice for his signature.

“We’ve had so much stuff that is great for the State of West Virginia that I can’t tell you everything yet that we’ve done. It’s rather amazing,” said Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley. “There’s more that’s still out there in the pipeline to look at. With the performance of the Legislature and the ability to work together and get things done, this is the best session I’ve been involved in since 2003. There’s no question about it.”

“We’ve had a great session,” said House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s going to be one of the most productive sessions we’ve ever had.”

The week before the session started in January, Blair and Hanshaw laid out a number of priorities to tackle in this year’s session, including splitting up the Department of Health and Human Resources, reforming the Public Employees Insurance Agency and focusing on making reading and mathematics proficiency for third graders.

As the session closed Saturday, bills to accomplish those goals had already been passed, with one of those bills already signed into law. House Bill 2006, relating to reorganizing DHHR, was signed by Justice March 4. HB 2006 terminates DHHR and splits it into a Department of Human Services, a Department of Health and a Department of Health Facilities effective Jan. 1.

House Bill 3035, relating generally to high-quality education programs and school operations, completed legislative action Saturday after technical changes were made to the bill. A similar bill was championed by Hanshaw both last year and this year, but the House bill includes the Senate’s similar Third Grade Success Act.

HB 3035 requires the state Board of Education to develop screeners and benchmark assessments in English language arts and mathematics for students in kindergarten through third grade, as well as a multi-tiered system of support for students exhibiting substantial reading or math deficiencies to ensure students are proficient before moving past the third grade. The bill also allows for teacher aids and interventionists in early elementary classrooms up to third grade.

And what started out as an effort to address concerns over in-state hospital reimbursement rates after Wheeling Hospital threatened to stop accepting Public Employees Insurance Agency effective in July became a full-on effort to address ongoing solvency issues of the program. Senate Bill 268, relating to PEIA, is awaiting the governor’s signature.

SB 268 sets the reimbursement rate for all healthcare providers at a minimum level of 110% of what Medicare reimburses providers, sets numerous requirements for members of the PEIA Finance Board, requires a five-year analysis of potential future costs to the program and an actuarial study of the plans offered by PEIA.

The bill also requires PEIA to return to an 80/20 employer-employee match beginning in July and a 70/30 match for out-of-state medical care for non-contiguous out-of-state counties. The bill would change the price of the plan for spouses of PEIA plan participants who have access to health insurance coverage to the actuarial value of the PEIA plan, which could cost plan participants an additional $147 per month during the next plan period according to PEIA.

The Legislature ended the session with a balanced general revenue budget for fiscal year 2024 beginning in July. House Bill 2024 sets a $4.875 billion general revenue budget plus more than $1.165 billion in one-time funding placed in the surplus section in the back of the budget to be paid out if the state ends the current fiscal year with surplus tax revenue.

The budget includes a $2,300 pay raise for executive branch employees paid out of the general revenue budget. A separate bill provides teachers, school service personnel, and West Virginia State Police troopers and staff.

And House Bill 2526, signed last week by Justice who was surrounded by lawmakers and balloons, provided the most substantial tax cut in 37 years and will return more than $800 million in tax relief for West Virginians when fully implemented.

HB 2526 includes a 21.25 percent cut across all six personal income tax brackets retroactive to Jan. 1 of the current tax year. The bill includes a trigger formula for further reducing personal income tax rates after Aug. 1, 2024.

HB 2526 includes: a 100 percent rebate on vehicle tangible personal property taxes for state residents; a 50 percent tax rebate in the form of personal income and corporate net income taxes refunds for the payment by small businesses on tangible personal property taxes on machinery/equipment, inventory, leasehold investments, computer equipment and furniture and fixtures; and a 100 percent refundable homestead tax credit for veterans who are 90 percent to 100 percent service-disabled.

“We’re putting money back into the people’s pockets of West Virginia,” Blair said. “The teachers wanted PEIA fixed. it’s a long way toward the fixed side. Is there more that needs to be done? Yes. We still got the resources to be able to bring in other businesses to the state and grow our economy so that our youth will be better educated, will have greater job opportunities in this state to grow our tax base and be able to continue this momentum forward.”

“We have enacted a historic tax cut,” Hanshaw said. “We have put our Public Employees Insurance Agency on sure footing for another generation. We have reorganized the biggest entity of state government in DHHR. We just put classroom teachers’ aides in every first- and second-grade classroom in West Virginia, which has been a personal priority of mine now for two years. We’ve done all that without substantially growing our budget and in fact, putting money back in people’s pockets.”

Justice was monitoring the final night of the session from the Governor’s Mansion. An invitation for an interview by a representative of the Governor’s Office was later rescinded. To date, Justice has signed 40 bills and two bills have become law without his signature. No bills have been vetoed as of Saturday.

House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, wondered Saturday whether the wins being touted by the governor and Republican legislative leadership will be considered wins by citizens and public employees.

“There’s going to be a lot of talk about the income tax reduction,” Skaff said. “Was that the right way to spend all that surplus money or not? We still have a lot of priorities out there that are left unaddressed. A lot of people hated to see the PEIA increase at 26% when we had a surplus. We think we could have offset that. That was disappointing.”

Skaff expressed disappointment that lawmakers didn’t pass bills to address the severe vacancy rate in the correctional system, provide state public employee retirees with a cost-of-living adjustment and further improve public education.

“I think we have our priorities all screwed up at times,” Skaff said. “It’s great to continue to see economic development and we’ve done the economic development projects over and over again, but I think at some point we’ve got to sit back and take care of our people, our West Virginia people.”

Skaff also said the Republican-led Legislature spent far too much time on bills focused on conservative populism.

“I think the last thing we need to do is remember that we’re all in this together and these social issues do nothing but divide us,” Skaff said. “Quit talking about social issues for the first month of the session. They bogged us down. We could have been rolling up our sleeves and working on stuff that needed to get done, but instead we wasted about a month dealing with social issues.”

Some of those bills included House Bill 2007, prohibiting a physician from providing irreversible gender reassignment surgery or medication for gender-affirming care, such as hormones or puberty blockers, to a person who is under 18 with certain exceptions.

House Bill 2862, ensuring that all shareholder votes by or on behalf of the state Investment Management Board and the Board of Treasury Investments are cast according to the specific factors that would affect the interests of investment beneficiaries. The bill is aimed at making sure the state doesn’t invest state funds based on factors like environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG).

Senate Bill 10, the Campus Self-Defense Act, allows students, staff and the public to carry firearms on public college campuses with valid concealed carry permits with certain exceptions. And House Bill 2004 would prevent the use of payment card processing systems for surveillance of Second Amendment activity and discriminatory conduct.

Senate Minority Leader Michael Woelfel, D-Cabell, was more optimistic about some of the legislation that passed between January and March, but he expressed disappointment about bills that never made it across the finish line.

“I think we stayed between the guardrails. We passed some legislation that will move the state forward. Other legislation failed for the second session in a row,” Woelfel said. “I was certainly disappointed about those good bills that were well vetted…Overall it’s not as bumpy as usual, I don’t think.”