CHARLESTON – Members of the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to provide a financial lifeline for Hancock County Schools but made it clear to state Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt that they want the funding paid back.

The Finance Committee met Tuesday afternoon and recommended a strike-and-insert amendment for House Bill 4575, making a supplemental appropriation to the West Virginia Board of Education, to the full Senate.

HB 4575 is a supplemental appropriation bill intended to provide $8 million to the Hancock County Board of Education to prevent a total financial collapse and missed payrolls at the end of the current fiscal year following the state’s intervention in the county’s troubled school system. The committee amended the bill to make technical corrections.

Hancock County Schools faces a nearly $3.1 million funding shortfall. According to the Department of Education, the district failed to implement a reduction in force, maintaining 143 staff positions over the state school aid formula, paying for them with temporary federal dollars and moving the employees to the general fund without a sustainable funding source.

The school district’s financial hole continued to grow thanks to decisions to fund an athletic facility upgrade, including a turf field. State education officials discovered the district bypassed the mandatory West Virginia Education Information System accounting inputs, opting instead to manage finances via manual spreadsheets that obscured their actual deficit.

The state Board of Education voted Jan. 16 for the Department of Education to take over Hancock County Schools, remove its superintendent and assistant superintendent, appoint a new superintendent and limit the authority of the Hancock County Board of Education.

A full report will be in Wednesday’s edition.