MORGANTOWN – The House and Senate churned through a series of mostly off-the-radar bills on Wednesday; the bill that generated just about the most debate was one to eliminate the Board of Sanitarians.
HB 3036 is the sanitarians bill. It’s three sentences long and ends the board June 30, 2023.
Sanitarians are responsible for enforcing public health measures. The state website says the board has existed since the early 1960s and was codified in 1992. It has seven members and reviews sanitarian candidates’ applications for registration and reviews training classes and meeting agendas to determine the number of continuing education credit hours that will be assigned to a meeting.
Government Organization chair Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, said the board is no longer necessary because local health departments fulfill those duties.
Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, argued at length against the bill. Although the Performance Evaluation & Research Divsion said eliminating the board poses little public risk, there’s no risk because sanitarians do such a good job, she said.
They work in every county, she said, overseeing food and milk safety, wastewater and drinking water facilities, public swimming pools, infectious medical waste, disaster sanitation and school pubic health threat preparedness, among many other things.
“This has gone very, very well. There’s no reason to get rid of it when its working,” she said. And its costs nothing.
It passed 76-18 and goes to the Senate. Locally, Fleischauer and Democrats Evan Hansen, Danielle Walker and John Williams, and Republican Guy Ward voted against it.
The House also passed HB 4355, dealing with disclosures to college students of the costs of their educational materials.
It requires the governing board to publish a list of required textbooks, and whether they are open resource or free. The board must also disclose if students will be automatically charged for a textbook or digital access to courseware.
Books purchased by students outside of the class enrollment process are excluded.
It passed 95-0 and goes to the Senate.
Senate bills
SB 487 changes the formula for transferring surplus revenue into the Rainy Day Fund.
There are two funds officially called the Revenue Shortfall Fund: A and B. The Revenue Shortfall Fund Part A is usually called the Rainy Day Fund.
Current law says 50% of any fund surplus at the end of a fiscal year must be transferred into the Rainy Day Fund to make its balance equal 13% of the General Revenue Fund balance at the end of that year. No further deposits are required until the Rainy Day Fund balance falls below the 13% mark.
The bill would change code to say that the deposit into the Rainy Day Fund is required if the combined total of Parts A and B fall below 23% of the General Fund based on a rolling average o the previous seven years. The bill would take effect July 1, the beginning of Fiscal Year 2023.
It passed 34-0 and goes to the House.
The Senate amended two bills on second reading.
HB 4074 is Meghan’s Law — to train public school personnel and students regarding self-harm and eating disorder signs, prevention and treatment.
The amendment broadens the scope slightly, expanding the training from “all public school employees” to “all county board employees who might come into contact with a student, including full-time, part-time, and contract employees, as well as any volunteers of a school or school district that might come into contact with a student.”
HB 4276 empowers WVU to create a Parkinson’s registry to help track the prevalence of the neurodegenerative disease in the state. The amendment changes the word “shall” to “may” throughout to make it permissive rather than mandatory. It makes a few other tweaks for how WVU handles the list.
Both bills are on third reading for passage on Thursday.
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