FILE -West Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Crouch speaks during a press conference at the state Capitol in Charleston, W.Va., Friday, March 13, 2020. Crouch said Thursday, May 19, 2022, that 15% pay raises for state social workers will be funded through vacant positions. (Chris Dorst/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP, File)

CHARLESTON — Additional pay raises for social services workers originally in a now-defunct foster care reform bill are moving forward, and a version of a dashboard stripped out of that bill for tracking foster care system data is also happening.

Gov. Jim Justice and Bill Crouch, cabinet secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Resources, made the announcements Thursday morning during a virtual briefing with press from the State Capitol Building. The announcements come as Justice signed a proclamation celebrating May as National Foster Care Month.

“We have worked out the details and I have approved 15% salary increases for direct services employees of DHHR, the Bureau of Social Services. That is done now,” Justice said. “These people work really, really hard.”

All state workers are receiving a 5% average pay raise starting in July when the new fiscal year 2023 budget begins. But lawmakers in the House included a 15% pay increase for direct services employees within DHHR’s Bureau of Social Services, which includes social worker, Child Protective Services, and employees within the state’s foster care system.

But those raises were stripped out of House Bill 4344 at the request of DHHR and the Governor’s Office. In his annual letter to the Legislature making changes to his fiscal year 2023 budget proposal days before the end of the 2022 legislative session on March 12, Justice said DHHR already had the ability within State Code to increase pay to social services employees by collapsing some of the more than 1,400 vacant positions within DHHR.

“How we’ve done it is just minding the store,” Justice said. “We didn’t have to pull a dime out, not one dime. What we did is we had vacancies. As those vacancies were never filled and they had been there vacant … all we had to do is mind the store the right way and be able to compensate these employees who are doing incredible work.

The 15% raises will cover 970 workers with the bureau at a cost of $9 million. Crouch said the raises were a priority for the governor and himself.

“(Justice) was adamant this get done,” Crouch said. “He is the one who made sure this happened and stayed on me to make sure it happened. We want to make sure we keep doing what we’re doing in regards to CPS work in the State of West Virginia and (adult protective services) workers.”

Justice and Crouch also announced a new foster care data dashboard. The dashboard, which should go live starting June 1, will include data on foster care and kinship care placements, referrals, and staffing numbers.

“We plan to publish a child welfare dashboard … showing information on CPS placements, referrals, and workloads, as well as other important information,” Justice said. “I told you we’d get this done. We got it done and we got it done without spending any money.”

“This will be a living dashboard much like the dashboard for COVID,” Crouch said. “When we see the need to make changes, we’ll make changes and keep that information updated on a monthly basis. We plan to make it better as we go along, but it’s a way for people to see what is going on in the state in regard to our CPS program and making sure we keep children safe.”

HB 4344 had language creating a foster care dashboard as it came over from the House, but the Senate Finance Committee gutted much of the bill, including removing the dashboard language at the request of DHHR. The bill ultimately died before the end of the legislative session.

According to DHHR, there are 6,619 children in the state’s foster care system as of April, most of whom are in kinship and relative care. West Virginia’s foster care system has grown substantially over the last decade in relation to the growing opioid epidemic in the state.

DHHR has come under scrutiny recently with the veto by Justice of a bill that required the state’s largest cabinet department to be split into two and with the departure of former deputy secretary Jeremiah Samples, who now works for the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Government and Finance.

Justice called for a top-down review of DHHR after vetoing the bill to split the department. DHHR put out a request for proposals last month for companies to audit DHHR. DHG Healthcare and the McChrystal Group are the only companies to submit bids.