A bill that would divide the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources into three departments is on its way to the floor of the House of Delegates.
The House Finance Committee approved a committee substitute Wednesday for House Bill 2006, which would divide the DHHR into the departments of Health, Human Resources and Health Facilities.
Under the committee substitute, the Department of Health and Human Resources will continue to exist until Jan. 1, 2024, at which time it will be replaced by the three departments, counsel for the Finance Committee explained.
The bill would create between the three departments an office of shared administration “that will cooperate with the existing department of administration to maximize efficiencies and function of services in an effort to contain expenses within the new departments,” counsel said.
Legislation splitting the DHHR into two agencies passed during the 2022 legislative session, but Gov. Jim Justice vetoed it and hired Virginia-based McChrystal Group LLC to do a $1 million review of the agency.
Lawmakers panned the results of the review, which said splitting the agency into two was not the answer to improving it. The report instead called for restructuring the DHHR around an executive leadership team with six leaders serving as state health officer, director of threat preparedness, chief operating officer, deputy secretary for child welfare, deputy secretary for access and eligibility, and deputy secretary for substance use disorder.
A fiscal note for a previous version of HB 2006 indicated a net zero effect on costs to the state. The $479,500 per fiscal year needed for one new secretary position, the converting the chief operating officer of the Office of Health Facilities to a secretary position and hiring an executive assistant for each would be offset by eliminating vacant administrative positions within the DHHR, the fiscal note said.
Cabinet Secretary Dr. Jeff Coben said it would be difficult for the DHHR to be divided without additional costs and duplication of services.
Speaking in support of the bill, Delegate Matthew Rohrbach, R-Cabell, said it has been three years in the making, and long overdue.
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“I don’t think anyone in this Legislature in either chamber has been real happy with a lot of the things we’ve had reported about [the] DHHR,” Rohrbach said. “It’s been no one individual’s fault, because I would contend to you that [the] DHHR has been a bit too big for a long time for any one individual to get their hands around it.”
He said the most “stunning” finding of the McChrystal review was that 34 states have already divided their DHHRs into two or three divisions.
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here in West Virginia,” he said. “I think what we’re trying to do is get a more focused, better product for the delivery of services to the citizens, the state of West Virginia.”
Delegate Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, agreed that the change is a long time coming and called the bill a good first step.
“You get what you’ve always got, if you do what you’ve always done,” he said.
He asked the committee to keep an open mind as the departments put together their budgets.
“Obviously, the goal in government is to save money, but not at the risk of providing better services to the people of West Virginia,” Skaff said. “I do think there’ll be some synergies and ways to share, but the last thing we should do is close our mind to giving them a little bit more money if they need it down the road, if they come and ask for it to have a better product to provide for the people of West Virginia.”
Skaff is the president of HD Media, the parent company of the Gazette-Mail.
A measure similar to HB 2006, Senate Bill 126, passed in the Senate on Jan. 11, the first day of the legislative session.
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