Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed a 2016-17 fiscal year state budget Friday that will provide funding for the adult inmate education programs that lawmakers had previously targeted for elimination.
That means the employees who received notices of possible layoffs late last month from the West Virginia Department of Education won't lose their jobs. The education department said the originally proposed $4 million cut would result in layoffs for all 53 teachers and principals and eight support workers that staff the programs at the state's 20 adult jails and state prisons.
Department policy requires 30 days notification before layoffs.
Betty Jo Jordan, executive assistant to State Schools Superintendent Michael Martirano, said earlier this week that legislators had removed all previously proposed cuts from the programs before passing a budget bill Tuesday.
She said all the employees would keep their jobs if Tomblin didn't line-item veto out the funding, and she said the department hoped the governor would maintain the expenditure.
"They're all waiting, I'm sure, with bated breath, too," Jordan said of the programs' employees.
Tomblin's proposed budget - which already contained $86 million in cuts - didn't suggest cuts to the programs.
The planned prison educator "reductions in force," which would've been effective at the June 30 end of this fiscal year, would've included secretaries making annual salaries like $28,000, $33,300 and $47,200, teachers making salaries like $44,100, $52,700, $64,900 and $78,300 and principals making salaries like $70,900, $85,700 and $99,000.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Hall, R-Putnam, said the education department's impending layoff notices were sent when it looked like lawmakers were going to cut all $4 million from the programs amidst the budget impasse. He said department officials - he said he didn't recall whom - met with him and Senate Education Committee Chairman Dave Sypolt, R-Preston.
"People from the administration basically had come to us and said, 'This is a program you might want to consider [cutting] if you need revenue,'" Hall said. "It's not like anything where I scoured around and said, 'Let's just cut that.'"
But Hall said he began getting calls from people at Mason County's Lakin Correctional Center - in his district - saying the programs were effective. He said he changed his mind, and lawmakers first decreased the cut to $1 million and then eliminated it entirely.
Sarah Stewart, the education department's director of policy and government relations, said the department sent out the impending layoff notices because the funding was cut in some proposed versions of the budget bill. She said she didn't know of any department officials suggesting that the programs should be cut if cuts had to be made.
The governor also signed a bill (SB 1010) Thursday that will provide the Boone County public school system about $2.2 million more for this fiscal year. Boone school officials said they needed the extra money to give employees their final paychecks on time this month.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.