CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – A bill is working its way through the West Virginia Legislature that lawmakers believe will help improve the state’s child welfare system.
SB 727 would require the Department of Human Services to hire an independent third party to conduct a survey of the state’s child welfare system from top to bottom.
The bill specifically called for a review of child welfare laws, rules, and regulations; the permanent and temporary child placement system, including foster care and the adoption process; potential ways to reduce the removal rate of children from families; ways to increase efficiencies in the way child welfare services are offered; and ways to improve transparency and accountability for the system.
SB 727 set a deadline of Sept. 1, 2026, for the independent audit to be completed by, and submit its report to lawmakers during legislative interim meetings later that same month. DoHS would have been required to pay for the audit. A fiscal note was requested from DoHS to estimate how much would be needed to be appropriated for an audit, but that fiscal note was not available by the time of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
After nearly a two-hour discussion, members of a West Virginia Senate committee decided to lay over the bill.
After DoHS Cabinet Secretary Alex Mayer fielded questions from committee members regarding his plans to address child welfare issues in the state, the committee decided to lay the bill over.
”It’s not going to be me fixing it. It’s going to be me bringing all the right people together to fix it, and I think that is what we’re going to do and that’s what I think we started to do,” Mayer said. “I don’t think I need a study or some third-party come in here and tell me how to do it. What I can tell is what I’ve got in place and what we have moving in that direction is setting is up for that success.”
“If this system is not overhauled and fixed when the help is being offered to you, you bear, and the administration bears the sole responsibility for the failures of that to happen,” said Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha.
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