Statehouse beat: Are leaders asking right questions about PEIA?

Let's see if I've got this straight: Gov. Patrick Morrisey and legislative leaders spent all spring, summer, and now, going into autumn trying to come up with ways to reduce PEIA health insurance costs, and after all that time, apparently have nothing to show for it.

Maybe they're asking the wrong questions.

Perhaps, for a plan with fewer than 230,000 insurees – compared to millions for the largest health insurers -- PEIA is too simply too small to be able to take advantage of economies of scale or to force providers to accept lower reimbursement rates. Recall that not too long ago, PEIA reimbursements were so low that providers complained that they were losing money treating PEIA patients, resulting in the current rate equal to 110% of Medicaid reimbursements.

Perhaps Morrisey and company simply are in no position to reduce PEIA costs. Perhaps they would be better served to consider other options for recruiting and retaining state and public school employees.

For years before I ever set foot in the statehouse, the old saw was that while public employee salaries were lower than comparable positions in the private sector, public employment offered benefits that were far superior.

That included affordable, high-quality health insurance through PEIA, and a generous pension plan that featured the Rule of 80, which provided a full pension when one's age and years of service equaled 80. That meant someone who went to work for the state out of high school could retire as young as age 49, with ample opportunity to pursue a second career in the private sector.

Additionally, for many years the state had a policy intended to discourage employees from using sick leave as personal days, with the enticement of being able to convert accrued unused sick days into free PEIA coverage upon retirement, at the generous rate of one month of individual coverage for every two sick days, and one month of family coverage for three sick days.

A worker who enjoyed good health over the course of 30 years of employment could turn accrued sick days into more than 20 years of free PEIA coverage, more than enough to cover the gap from early retirement to Medicare eligibility.

Not surprisingly, the sick leave conversion policy proved to be quite expensive for the state, and was eliminated for anyone hired after July 1, 2001. Likewise, Rule of 80 was phased out for anyone hired after July 1, 2015.

Certain other perks of public employment remain, including 12 paid holidays a year, double what most private-sector employers offer. Additionally, governors are wont to give additional days or half-days off via executive order for Christmas and New Year's eves, and for the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, the third leg of the stool that made public employment attractive was job security.

At a time when jobs in the coal, chemical and steel industries were rapidly disappearing, one could be reasonably sure that government jobs weren't going to be eliminated or outsourced, despite the occasional attempt to "streamline" state government.

Also, with civil service protections, one could be reasonably secure knowing that the boss couldn't fire you so he could hire his nephew, or because you were a member of the wrong political party (former Secretary of State Mac Warner's purge in his first term notwithstanding).

Likewise, public employee grievance procedures assured that if you were competent at your job, and not overly abrasive to co-workers, you could keep that job as long as you wanted.

The bottom line is that most of the benefits that made public employment attractive in spite of comparatively lower wages have disappeared.

Health insurance is no longer a bargain. The prospect of retiring in one's mid-50s with a full pension and years of paid-up health coverage is gone. The job security that came via civil service and employee grievance protections no longer exists.

So it should come as no surprise that we're constantly reading about shortages of teachers, social workers, foster care providers, regional jail and corrections officers, and so on.

Combining low pay with mediocre benefits is a tough sell when you're trying to recruit qualified workers.

What Morrisey and legislative leaders should be realizing after their spring, summer and fall of discontent is that tinkering around the edges of PEIA won't begin to solve the problem.

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So what can Morrisey and the Legislature do to make state and public school employment more attractive in order to address worker shortages?

A logical first step would be to repeal legislation enacted this session gutting civil service and grievance protections for many state employees (HB 2008, HB 2009, and HB 2013).

However, there's near-zero chance of that happening, given that all three were governor's bills, passed on largely party-line votes in the House and Senate.

At the time of their passage, Morrisey declared, "I pledged to make state government more efficient and accountable to the people we serve, and these bills will help us do just that."

Morrisey failed to elaborate on just how stripping away employee rights and restoring the old political spoils system will enhance government efficiency and accountability.

Otherwise, now that state and public school employees no longer enjoy enhanced benefits or job security, it seems to me there's only one avenue left to make public sector jobs in West Virginia competitive with the private sector, and that's to raise salaries to the point they're equal to those private sector jobs.

As best as I can Google, the average government employee salary in West Virginia is about $16,500 below the overall average salary statewide.

Ballparking the numbers, raising government employee salaries to the state average would require giving all employees a roughly 40% pay raise, which would amount to about $1 billion a year. Given that the current state general revenue budget is $5.3 billion, that investment would require significant new sources of revenue.

If you believe that Morrisey or the Republican legislative supermajority are in any way inclined to consider that option, I have a bridge in a particular New York City borough to sell you.

However, unless Morrisey and company come up with some other miraculous solution, employee vacancies in state agencies and public schools are destined to continue to get worse.

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Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel's suspension is perhaps the most conspicuous example of the orchestrated attack on the First Amendment by President Donald Trump and his minions.

Openly contemptuous of the mainstream media, Trump also recently threatened legal action against network newscasts, claiming that 97% of their coverage of him is negative. Which is akin to a kid blaming a report card of all F's on a conspiracy by his teachers, not the reality that he's a terrible student.

Statewide, many elected officials are emulating Trump. Many routinely refuse to respond to media inquiries, ironic given that many of those same politicians have well-staffed public information offices.

As best I can tell, only Morrisey and U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.. regularly hold press conferences. Sightings of House members Riley Moore, R-W.Va., and Carol Miller, R-W.Va., are extremely rare, with press conferences or town hall meetings seemingly non-existent.

Meanwhile, the legislative supermajority showed its disdain for a free press with legislation this session initially designed to exempt the Legislature from the state Freedom of Information Act (HB 3412).

The bill died on the last day of the regular session when the House and Senate couldn't agree on Senate amendments that greatly expanded FOIA exemptions for other state agencies, and deleted a presumption in current law of public accessibility to all public records, except those specifically exempted.

Chilling.

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Finally, on these pages back on Sept. 6, I raised concerns that if Morrisey did in fact call a special session on PEIA, the Capitol press corps would be left homeless since, as of that date, restoration work had not yet begun on the Capitol Press Room after it and multiple other offices in the statehouse basement were flooded by a waterline break on June 9.

As I noted, all the other offices were in varying stages of repair, with work being done in-house by the General Services Division.

I don't know if it was cause and effect, but the following Tuesday while in my temporary workspace in the Capitol cafeteria (more on that momentarily), I was approached by two GSD officials asking for permission to clear out the Gazette-Mail's space in the Press Room, and by Sept. 12, all furniture had been moved out of the entire Press Room in preparation for replacing flooring and baseboards.

As of my Friday afternoon deadline, installation of new flooring was about two-thirds complete.

As for working out of the cafeteria, one reason is that when I tried to work from home, I discovered that my company issued laptop is not compatible with my 5G home internet, so the cafeteria seemed to be the most logical location to access the statehouse internet.

At any rate, kudos to the dedicated GSD workers for bringing the Press Room back on line, assuring that if there would happen to be a special session next month, the press corps will have a home.