MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As education — along with a potential work stoppage — once again sweeps through the state Capitol, a number of delegates are still focused on #FTDR.
The popular short-hand for “Fix the Damn Roads” remains firmly on the mind of Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, and other members of the newly formed North Central West Virginia Legislative Roads Caucus.
“By my count, we have 17 delegates out of the 100 in our DOH district,” Hansen said Tuesday on WAJR’s “Talk of the Town” with Dave Wilson and Sarah Giosi. “It’s helpful, but it’s not a majority.
Laughing, he added: “But it is a step in the right direction, and it’s getting us on the same page on bills and I do think it is something to build on.”
The freshmen delegate is supporting two bills — H.B. 2491 and H.B. 2011. H.B. 2091 is designed to increase pay for DOH employees to make the positions more competitive relative to private industry. That bill has not yet been assigned to a committee.
The other bill, which has moved out of committee, would allow work to be contracted out if the DOH is having difficulty devoting resources to a project.
An audit of DOH District 4, released at the start of the 2019 regular session, indicated that the regional offices in District 4 were having a difficult time meeting yearly maintenance goals, citing pay as one of five major reasons behind labor shortages.
Those are small steps, Hansen said, towards a much larger goal — a bigger piece of the DOH funding pie for District 4.
“The way we see it is that we deserve more because our economy is growing,” Hansen said. “We’ve got more cars on the road, and we’ve got a roads maintenance emergency.”
For now, he recognizes that there’s good reason for other representatives to be hesitant about the demands of delegates from this region.
“But the way the DOH and delegates from other parts of the state see it is they are fighting to keep what they got,” Hansen said.
Hansen said he has sent a letter requesting the data that they plug into the DOH funding formula for every county.
“So that we can calculate for ourselves how much we should get,” Hansen said.
He added: “I think once we get that information, that will give us an indication of how much we’re being short-changed.”
The audit also revealed DOH District 4’s funding grew at the second-slowest level of any of the nine districts.