MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Members of the Monongalia County Commission have begun to take steps towards working with other counties to discuss future goals for the West Virginia First Foundation.
Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom announced in the closing minutes of the commission’s regular meeting Wednesday that representatives from three counties have reached out to see if more local feedback could be considered as part of the grant review process for the opioid settlement fund. The conversations included county commissioners from two counties along with members of the West Virginia First Foundation Board and Executive Director Jonathan Board.
“Yesterday, I met with commissioners from Lewis County and Upshur along with Jonathan Board and the five members of the (WV) First Foundation,” said Bloom. “What we asked for was to promote more local input into the decision process in reviewing grants for the First Foundation,” he said.
The commissioners who spoke with Bloom regarding a potential collaboration included Lewis County Commissioner Agnes Queen and Upshur County Commissioner Kristie Tenney, who included WV First Foundation representatives in on the conversation. According to Bloom, the discussions to increase local involvement in the review of grant requests are mainly aimed at having more local control over millions of dollars of locally allocated funds. This will allow for both more direct access to locally renowned nonprofits to get access to the opioid settlement as well as increase the opportunities for smaller municipalities and organizations to get a portion of the over $1 billion in funds yet to be allocated.
“Clearly, Mr. Board liked the idea of us working together,” said Bloom. “That we wanted to have more local input, and there’s a billion dollars, and there’s a lot of small communities that need to be heard, and that’s what we wanted to express in the process,” he said.
The potential collaboration between Monongalia, Lewis, and Upshur counties comes less than six months after the foundation had to rework the application process for grant requests after recipients of around $8.8 million had to repeat the process. This also comes after board members agreed to have regional expert panels that will work to support grant requests that are reviewed before being presented to the state board. With three counties from different parts of the Mountain State working to increase their involvement in opioid settlement fund allocations, Bloom expects a mutual announcement to be made by the three commissions within the next week.
“Lewis and Upshur (counties) and I are going to come out with a joint press release to explain what we meant and what we are trying to do in having more input (in the grant review process),” said Bloom. “That will be coming out hopefully in the next week,” he said.
The commission also took time to report that lines of communication have continued to improve with leaders on a state level. This comes after a meeting with new State Attorney General J.B. McCusky late last week as well as a meeting with new West Virginia Department of Transportation Secretary Todd Rumbaugh, who met with Monongalia County Administrator Renetta McClure in the days ahead of Wednesday’s meeting. With a combination of state leaders expected to be involved with different aspects of county-related developments, the commission is happy to see what they feel is a sudden improvement in communications.
“It’s kind of refreshing,” said Monongalia County Commission President Jeff Arnett. “Everybody is new in their positions, and what we’ve heard is that there’s a new commitment to addressing some of the things that we haven’t with other parts (departments) of the state where we may have been left a little behind before, so I’m encouraged by that,” he said.