Health committee advances bills meant to enhance oversight

The House Committee on Health and Human Resources advanced a couple of bills aimed at trying to ensure greater oversight.

One, HB 4595, would allow a legislative oversight committee to meet privately to hear details about sensitive matters like child protective services investigations. Even though the provision allows closed door meetings, the concept is that lawmakers could gain access to sensitive information, perform oversight functions and potentially react in a timely fashion to adjust policies.

The committee chair, Delegate Amy Summers, described narrowly-tailoring what kinds of cases may be subject to closed sessions “so that the goal is not to become less transparent.”

Another, HB 4593,would require open meetings of the nonprofit West Virginia First Foundation, which is the board set up to distribute opioid lawsuit proceeds in ways that could benefit the state.

Delegate Heather Tully, R-Nicholas, was a lead sponsor of the bill that would allow the Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability to go into executive session to learn about sensitive topics.

“I feel we, as lawmakers do not get enough information sometimes in real time to make critical decisions for children who are impacted by CPS or maybe it is something tragic that has happened with those children that are under our care. I wanted some more real-time information,” said Tully, vice chair of the Health committee.

“And I really felt like, because of the legal confidentiality constraints that we always seem to run up against when we ask DHHR for that information, this would give lawmakers a chance to get that information to make expedient policy decisions that will impact those children.”

During Thursday afternoon’s committee meeting, Tully described an 8-year-old, Raylee Browning, who died the day after Christmas, 2018. Her father, his girlfriend at the time and her sister were convicted and sentenced in her death in 2022. The week-long trial included testimony about CPS referrals that did not result in action.

“But what was the most frustrating thing is that cases usually take a long time to get through the court system, and our fatality and mortality review teams have been a few years behind on looking at some of these things,” Tully said.

“So it was frustrating to me as a legislator to have constituents come up and mention this and not be able to get any details as to what had happened, where maybe we could find a failure or corrective issue so maybe this situation doesn’t repeat itself in the future.”

She said such situations often mean “you get stonewalled.”

The other bill is meant to ensure open decision-making by the West Virginia First Foundation. The newly-created board responsible for millions of dollars in distributions met for the first time two months ago with an unclear process for announcing that it would formally gather. The committee’s second meeting included a closed-door session to discuss transparency. 

Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said the assurances to follow open meetings procedures are important.

“We’re talking about a whole lot of money,” Pushkin said. “It’s often referred to as a windfall. This money is not. The state got that money because a lot of people lost their lives. It’s very important what it’s spent on. This money came at a great, great cost to the state.”

Following the meeting, Tully agreed that it’s important for the public to have confidence in how that drug settlement money is used.

“Because of the sheer amount of money that is coming forth, we want to be sure we’re using that money in an efficient, open manner and putting it toward best causes and best practices to actually impact those impacted by the opioid crisis, the reason why the money was awarded in the first place,” she said.