CHARLESTON — Wednesday, Feb. 26, wass Crossover Day in the Legislature: the 50th day of the 60-day session, when bills have to pass out of their house of origin to remain alive. The House of Delegates met for nearly seven hours to churn through a long list of bills. Among the highlights was the bill to help save Fairmont Regional Medical Center.
All House bills passed go to the Senate.
HB 4971 has the immediate aim of smoothing the sale of Fairmont Regional Medical Center to keep its employees working and its healthcare services, including its emergency room, available to the community. California-based owner Alecto Healthcare Services announced the closure, within 60 days, last week.
That would put its 600 employees out of work and, it was said, jeopardize healthcare – particularly emergency care – for Marion County residents.
Delegates and the West Virginia Hospital Association worked on it after the bill passed out of Government Organization last week, and a floor amendment brought a completely different bill for a vote.
The code section deals with the exemption for a certificate of need for the sale of a financially distressed hospital.
The bill allows the purchase to be exempt if the buyer will renovate the hospital to create a community outpatient medical center; or will establish a new hospital to be located within the same county and a six-mile radius of the acquired hospital’s current campus.
In the latter case, the bed capacity and services to be offered will be limited to the current bed capacity and services, or reduced bed capacity and services, for which the closing or closed hospital maintains a valid certificate of need. The buyer must continue to maintain services and bed capacity offered by the acquired hospital until the hospital is opened.
Also, if the buyer plans to establish a community outpatient medical center in the same county as the acquired hospital, any certificate of need associated with the acquired hospital will be revoked.
Outpatient services to be offered at a community outpatient medical center will be limited to the outpatient services for which the closing or closed, hospital maintains a valid certificate of need.
A community outpatient medical center may not offer inpatient medical services; but, at a minimum must provide emergency medical care and observation care 24 hours a day, seven days a week; treat all patients regardless of insurance status; and have protocols in place for the timely transfer of patients who require a higher level of care.
All three Marion delegates rose to support the bill. Delegate Linda Longstreth said it may be a vehicle to help the sale of FRMC, but it could also help other struggling rural hospitals in the future.
Delegate Michael Angelucci said, “This has been a long week-and-a-half for us. … We’re hoping this will help us keep our hospital open.”
Delegate Mike Caputo said discussions on this problem began about six weeks ago when the rumors of the closure began circulating. The governor got involved, but nothing much happened until Alecto made its announcement last week. When delegates visited FRMC last week, “It was like going to a funeral.”
Caputo said Alecto, government officials and key players are now meeting on the future of the hospital and he speculated that a resolution offered last week by Delegate Erikka Storch, R-Ohio (where Alecto closed its Wheeling hospital and a nearby hospital in Ohio) to investigate Alecto’s business practices may have helped bring Alecto to the table.
He said he doesn’t know if this bill is the final answer to the problem, but but it won’t hurt anything and it could help.
The bill passed passed 97-0.
HB 4969 provides a new tax credit against personal income or corporate net income for the donation or sale of a vehicle to a charitable organization for low-income workers. Delegate Terri Sypolt, R-Preston, said it will help people get transportation they need to get to work.
Sypolt said it’s estimated that the program could help 750 people across five years get to work. The tax credit could cost a projected $300,000 but generate $13.5 million in wages. It passed 95-2. All local delegates voted for it.
HB 4892 enables people to set up payment plans to repay court fines and costs, and keep their driver’s licenses instead of having the licenses suspended for failure to pay. Delegates said the goal is to allow people to get back to work or to keep going to work instead of having them not be able to drive, or to drive illegally and keep racking up fines they’ll never pay. States with similar programs see their collections rise. It passed 89-9. All local delegates voted for it.
HB 4639 intended to change the annual vehicle safety inspection to biannual. It raised the sticker cost from $14 to $17 to preserve the $3 per year dedicated to State Police, who opposed the bill.
It stirred a long debate and failed 48-59.
Supporters focused on safety. Delegate Larry Rowe, R-Kanawha, said 900 wrecks in 2019 were caused by bad tires and brakes. Delegate Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, said that last year 188,000 cars failed and 90% of those failures came from bad tires and brakes.
Delegate Mike Caputo, D-Marion, said he wants problems in his car identified – problems not easy to see until the wheels are pulled. “I would think once a year we would want to pay $14 to make sure the car my daughter’s driving has good brakes or tight tie rods.”
Delegate Gary Howell, R-Mineral, owns a shop but doesn’t do inspections. He said the system is a racket. People borrow tires to get their cars passed; some even steal stickers form cars in salvage yards. Some dishonest shops will identify phony problems to make the money they lose doing the inspection.
There’s no correlation between accidents and safety inspections, he said. Of the three states with the lowest accident rates, one does annual inspections, one does biannual, one does none. Some states with annual inspections have higher rates. “What we do is an inconvenience on the people of West Virginia.”
Some delegates said they support the bill but would prefer to see no inspections at all. Delegate Joshua Higginbotham, R-Putnam, said his sister runs a shop and she considers them a hindrance because the $14 she gets for each inspection doesn’t cover her time.
Delegate Evan Worrell, R-Cabell, displayed the 256-page inspection manual, written in 1999. He said inspection stations find it outdated and onerous, loaded with details inspectors ignore because they can’t cover it all in the 30 or so minutes devoted to an inspection.
Locally, the vote fell along party lines: All nine Democrats opposed it; all three Republicans voted for it.
HB 4602 increases the penalty for a driver’s reckless disregard causing death when a child is present in the car. It makes the action a felony and increases the prison time, now not more than a year, to two -10 years. It also increases the fine, now $100-$1,000, to $1,500-$3,000.
Delegate Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, said the bill wrongly punishes negligence with a felony and a long prison term, a punishment that should be reserved for intentional homicide.
Judiciary chair John Shott, R-Mercer, argued that it levels appropriate consequences when someone recklessly takes a human life. It passed 67-33. Locally, Delegates Michael Angelucci, Mike Caputo, Evan Hansen, Linda Longstreth and Amy Summers voted for it. Delegates Barbara Evans Fleischauer, Buck Jennings, Dave Pethtel, Rodney Pyles, Terri Sypolt, Danielle Walker and John Williams voted against it.
HB 4574 creates in the Department of Commerce a Coal and Timber Transition Office and Coal and Timber Transition Advisory Committee to deal with the effects of coal and timber job layoffs and create a Coal and Timber Transition Plan and Workforce Transition Plans to assist affected communities and workers. Delegate Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, is lead sponsor.
Hansen said after the floor session that the bill directs funding and programs into communities that are hardest hit. It doesn’t create any new programs or funding streams. It helps focus federal and private foundations into the communities. Impacted workers in the impacted communities will be part of the committee and will be better suited to understanding the needs than bureaucrats in D.C. “It’s all about diversifying local economies so there’s new opportunities.”
It passed 100-0.
HB 4560 enables shops that sell wine to deliver gifts baskets containing wine without the purchaser coming into the store. The purchaser may order the gift basket by phone or email or website.
Hansen is also lead sponsor of this one and said after the floor session that legislation passed last year allowed deliveries of gift baskets containing wine but required a face-to-face purchase. A Morgantown shop told him this puts them at a competitive disadvantage with out-of-stat retailers that can accept online purchases and deliver them in West Virginia.
“It just helps mom-and-pop shops in West Virginia compete.” There are shops in Charleston, Grafton and other cities across the state that will benefit. It passed 87-13. All local delegates except Buck Jennings, R-Preston, voted for it.
HB 4524 makes the whole state “wet,” meaning permitting the sale of alcohol in stores for off-premises consumption. It stirred lengthy debate.
The bill, delegates said, came from a request by Snowshoe Resort, which is located in a dry community. Customers are frustrated because they can’t buy wine from local stores.
Delegates Larry Kump, R-Berkeley, and Gary Howell, R-Mineral, both complained that the bill usurps local control. The House preaches local control Howell said, until a county or city does something contrary to the Legislature’s wishes. Then the Legislature steps in to take control.
Delegate Kevan Bartlett, R-Kanawha, went even farther. “What we have here is a clear incident of legislative bullying. … Here we go again with another booze bill. … Are these the noble aspirations we reach for?” Will more booze and gambling make West Virginia a better place to live, work and raise a family?
One entire county, Calhoun, five cities and part of seven other counties are now dry.
Bill supporters said that it allows localities to return to dry by a majority vote of the county commission or city or town council. Delegate William Hartman, D-Randolph, added that the Alcohol Beverage Control Administration, the Division of Tourism and the state Chamber of Commerce all support it,
A couple delegates, one Democrat, one Republican, said it brings the state forward from outdated Prohibition-era legislation.
It passed 73-26. All local delegates except Buck Jennings, R-Preston, voted for it.
HB 4497 requires that an automated external defibrillator and a posted emergency action plan be present on school or event grounds during all extramural high school or middle school athletic events and practices. The law will be called the Alex Miller Law in memory of Alex Miller, a Roane County football player who collapsed and died during a school football game.
AEDs cost $725 each and several delegates mentioned that schools may need more than one for times when several games or practices are occurring simultaneously. A fiscal note with the bill says West Virginia has 298 middle and secondary schools. The West Virginia Secondary Schools Athletic Commission has purchased and placed 191 AEDs. If each school bought one new AED, the minimum cost would be $216,050. Counties, not the state, would bear the costs.
It passed 100-0.
HB 4494 creates the Tobacco Use Cessation Initiative. It will draw its funding from 25% of a prior year’s interest earnings from Rainy Day B, the Tobacco Settlement Medical Trust Fund, which was created with money from the state’s $900,000 settlement in its Big Tobacco suit. Delegates noted that very little of that money has been used for its intended purpose.
The bill creates a Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation Task Force under the Bureau for Public Health’s Division of Tobacco Prevention to recommend and monitor programs to be administered by the division.
Delegate Matt Rorbach, chair of the Prevention and Treatment of Substance Abuse Committee, talked about the teen smoking and vaping epidemic. “It’s time we put this money toward this problem,” he said. Many delegates commended the idea of using the money for its intended purpose.
It passed 90-10. All local delegates voted for it.
HB 4439 clarifies some confusion from a 2019 bill regarding severance tax rebates for increased coal production. This bill says that a company with more than one mine can claim the rebate only if its aggregate production total exceeds the baseline year’s.
Finance vice-chair Vernon Criss, R-Wood, said only one metallurgical company has taken advantage of last year’s bill. Last year, it invested $100 million at a new mine site and will be spending $220 million next year. The project involves 3,000 construction jobs and will put 150 miners to work. It passed 98-1. All local delegates voted for it.
HB 2897 deals with the speed limit in school zones. It’s currently 15 mph during school opening and closing and during recess. This bill says the speed limit is 15 mph whenever the school zone beacons flash. It passed 97-0.
HB 4159 is characterized as an economic development bill to promote the hard cider industry. It creates an Agriculture Development Fund and devotes tax revenue from the sale of hard cider to the fund to promote the industry. While hard cider is typically sold on the beer shelves, the bill characterizes it as wine and sets the tax level between wine and beer.
Delegate Tom Fast, R-Fayette, opposed the bill. “We know what alcohol does,” he said. “If this bill could take a life, this is it. It’s a booze bill. I urge rejection.” It passed 81-17. All local delegates except Buck Jennings, R-Preston, voted for it.
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