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Welcome to the legislature today.

I'm Randy Yoni.

Thank you for following along with us throughout this 2026 legislative session.

Everything wraps up tomorrow at midnight and we will broadcast live on our show.

The final hours.

Now, Wednesday was the last day for bills to make it out of, committee to give them the opportunity to be read three times on the floor by the close of session.

Now that's without eithe chamber suspending their rules and reading it more than once on the same day.

The Senate had a few straggler committees on Thursday, but the House of delegates move everything to the floor by then.

In total, there were 2776 bills introduced this session.

That' a higher total than last year.

Now we won't know how many passed until everything wraps up tomorrow.

Overnight, Governor Patrick Morrisey sent out a press release indicating he signed Senate Bill 250, the budget bill, and he highlighte several of his key priorities, including ful funding for the Hope scholarship and increased funding for the roads and and the progress made toward the 5% tax cut included in his version of the budget.

Now, the budget also includes a 3% pay raise for state employees and a 3% cap on P.A.

premiums.

And for the first time, there's $5 million allocate for the state's Flood Resiliency Trust Fund that's meant to strengthen flood preparedness and improve disaster cleanup efforts.

Now, in a separate lette to Senate President Randy Smith, a Republican from Preston County, and House speaker Roger Hanshaw a Republican from Clay County, the governor outlined a dozen line item vetoes.

Many of them were drafting errors, but several were reductions in specific line items, the biggest of which is a $400,000 cut to the court appointed special advocate program, leaving $700,000 in support of abus and neglected children in court.

Maria Young has been following legislative efforts to get struggling students to help they need, but not everyone agrees on the best process for doing that.

The toughest of truancy cases land in court before a judge who can hold students and parents accountable, and can also order a host of services they may need.

It takes time, though, and it means the student is considered truant when the student may not be at fault.

A House Education Committee staffer told the committee that House Bill 4656 would make key changes to that process.

The goal is to provide early intervention for two students who are chronically absent, to assist them in receiving the services or intervention they need before their absences that underlie the absences are exacerbated.

Proponents sa the legislation would allow help to reach truant students and their parents earlier in the process.

But school intervention staff told the committee, but also take away the tools they really need for the toughest cases.

This new bill takes away the ability for the court to take that juvenile and put them with a family member in the community or something along those lines to help jump start their tenants and then eventually return them back home.

He said he's concerned that without the support service and the watchful eye of a court, students will fall through the cracks.

The kids need assistance, the families need assistance, and we want to be abl to offer them that assistance.

And sometimes that assistance is not available without a court order.

Taylor County Assistant Prosecutor Allison Applewhite told the committee she referred 62 cases to court last year.

Approximately a third of those cases were actually, tied to underlying abusive neglect actions.

So we use the mechanism of a truancy case to, open up opportunities and t open up services for children.

Senator Jay Taylor, a Republican from Taylor County, offered a compromise.

My amendment would make it so okay.

Hey, you can still have this tool that you're looking for to address that.

But we will also allo the current tools that we have that are working so wel for some people to continue to.

But before members of the Senate Education Committee had a chance to vote on Taylor's amendment the committee ran out of time.

They plan to meet again Thursday, but that meeting was canceled.

With the clock ticking toward the end of the legislative session Saturday.

The bill's future is uncertain.

Mari Young for the legislature today, a very determined group of senators is still trying to create the West Virgini First Energy Act to require coal fired power plants to operate at no less than 69% capacity.

Now, supporters sa it would stabilize utility cost and provide badly needed support to the coal industry.

Opponents say it would driv those utility costs much higher.

Senate Bill 420 passe the Senate despite opposition, but it's stuck in the House Energy Committee.

Then this past week, it was attached to House Bill 4026 and failed.

On Thursday, the group, led b Senator Chris Rose, tried again, attaching the language to yet another House bill.

That led to an interesting exchange on the Senate floor.

So the provisions of Senate bill for 20 that were put into this bill were also put int a different House bill as well.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

And the House of delegates rejected that fairly resoundingly.

Is that that that was the case.

I believe there were seven yes votes.

Why do you feel it would b a different outcome this time?

Because this is very important for this industry.

And I'm sorry tha there's people across the way.

And we'll have a conference committee to work that out on the bill you're talking about.

That we need this for West Virginia ratepayers.

We need this for West Virginia's coal industry.

And quite frankly, we need it for West Virginia's power utilities, even though they disagree currently because they're getting all this massive subsidie when those subsidies are gone.

And I can't wait for Donald J. Trump to remove them.

Then you ain't gonna have no power left at all, because you ain't about afford it when and so or when it when everything else is gone.

House Bill 4481, including the West Virginia First Energy Act, passed the Senate Thursday 26 to 8.

Now heads back to the House.

The West Virginia Legislature has completed its work on Senate Bill four, called the Halo Bill.

Now, that creates a misdemeanor for approaching law enforcement officers and first responders in the field.

The bill passed on Thursday in the House of delegates by a vote of 83 to 12, with four members absent.

WVU student journalist Samantha Smith asked state police in Mount and Gallia County how they feel about this bill and brings us this report.

Luke Smith is a West Virginia state senior trooper who has served in the state for five years.

He says he feels threatene by bystanders almost every day, especially in populated areas.

It's a daily occurrence for our troopers, officers, deputies anywhere in the state.

States around the country are trying to make the jobs of first responder like Smith safer, including West Virginia Senate Bill four sponsored by Republican Senator Mike Oliverio, creates a new misdemeano to help under Senate Bill four.

Once the first responder gives a clear verbal warning, anyone nearby will be required to keep their distance.

Well, that responder is doing their job.

That distance under the bill would be 30ft.

Republican Delegate Jonathan Pinson is a former police officer who feels the bill would bring more police officers to the force.

There are a vast majority of departments that are begging for help.

And the reason why is it's a dangerous profession.

So we as a governing body, we must consider legislation that protects our police officers while at the same time protecting the rights of citizens.

But not everyone agrees.

Several West Virginia lawmakers feel this bill violates the First Amendment and puts citizens at risk.

I think it's problematic because in the state of West Virginia and in the country we have seeing where a lot of citizens have been able to help the public in capturing things on video.

And so the fear there is that the peopl are not going to be protected.

And so I think that Bill definitely needs vetted a lot more.

Smith say bystanders would still be able to record anything happening in a public place.

So it would only just protect us from someone who's trying to harm us or the individual, on scene.

He says the bill would make him feel protected while keeping his fellow West Virginians safe for the legislature today.

I'm Samantha Smith.

This week, ou student reporters, Neveah Segers and Jenna Walker, report on bills related to education and the foster care system that we're both introduced.

In both chambers, this session.

Good evening, West Virginia.

Welcome to the student section of the legislature today.

I'm Jenna Walker, and I'm Naveah Siggers.

This 2026 legislative session has seen a lot of action taking place, with over 100 bills already being passed in at least one chamber.

Over the course of this session, we looked into bills regarding both education and the foster care system.

Our legislators introduced many bills addressing this.

Most are still pending and we hope you all will continue to follow them throughout the session.

There are many bills we did not mention.

That's all action, such as House Bill 4765.

This was passed by the House and will give teachers, along with other school employees, a 3% pay increas if it passes the Senate as well.

Another bill that affects education is Senate Bill 600, which would make change to the Hope scholarship program by adding an income limit, limiting how the money can be used, and making sure the unused funds would go back into local schools.

As see progress in our foster care system, a number of bills are passed in order to give foster care childre more rights, access and funding.

These bills include House Bill 2033 and 4749, along with Senate Bill 797 and 546.

They also have to pas the other chamber to become law and other legislative news.

There are also bills being passed outside of education in foster care.

House Bill 4106, which was passed by the West Virginia House of delegates and would allow 18 to 20 year olds to carry a concealed firearm.

They have also the pass Senate Bill 173, which bans medical professionals from prescribing or mailing medicatio that would induce an abortion.

The punishment for this crime committed as a 3 to 10 year sentence in prison.

Continuing with other bills.

Moving through the 2026 legislative session.

Lawmaker are focusing on Senate Bill 43.

This bill focuses on removing the rape, incest, sexual violence and abuse exceptions from West Virginia's abortion law.

We are very excited to shar and report these topics to you.

Though some bills, w still have yet to see progress.

The session will continue into March and we hope that you will continue to follow along with this year's legislative sessions through the West Virginia Legislature website.

To close out this sessions edition of the legislature today.

We've gotten our reporters together to talk about some of the biggest bills they covered and what didn't come up.

I joined senior reporte Chris Schulz and assistant news director Maria Young in our studio.

Yes, it's the Randy, Maria and Chris section of the show where we're trying to maintai our energy after about 58 days.

Is that right?

It's 59 days.

One to go until final hours.

And the energy is a it's a high priority for us.

It's been a high priority in the legislature as well with the West Virginia First Energy Act.

Now where does that stand?

Maria, tell me what that means.

First of all, there's a 69% in there somewhere.

There is a 69% in there somewhere there.

We saw a clip earlier in the show, from the Senate floor involving, Senator Chris Rose from Monongalia, who is one of the driving forces of this legislation.

Senate Bil 420 came up quite a while ago.

Passed with some opposition in the Senate, but met some opposition in the House side.

It's in committee there now.

It's been attached to two other House bills.

And I think you've seen the results there.

It came up twice this week.

So it's been a ping pong.

What are the pros and cons?

Well, so the idea is that this is, as it says in the title.

First energy, West Virginia.

First energy act.

It's about, you know, maintaining the state's, energy industry, which has been so central to, West Virginia's growth and history, its identity.

And there's no doubt that the, you know, the winds of chang are not in favor at the moment.

So we've also see some other efforts to cut taxes on metal metallurgical coal, for example, this session and just generally try to supplement the federal government's support for coal that we've seen recently.

And so what this bill does is it, tries to maintain, coal usage and coal, fired power plants here in West Virginia.

The two big things that people are looking at in this, act are the 69% usage rate.

You cannot drop below that if you are a coal fired power plan in the state of West Virginia, and also a moratorium or sever restrictions on the sun setting and the retirement of coal fired power plants.

That'll mean a change over for because most of those plants operate on natural gas right now, don't they?

Well, we still have several coal fired power plants, some quite large ones, actually in the state of West Virginia.

Please don't ask me how many or where they are.

But I know the John Amos plant, for example, Point Pleasant up in Morgantown.

These are all coal fired power plants, and there's been a lot of discussion recently about converting them, about retiring them in favor of, as you say, natural gas.

But that's kind of gone out the window with the Trump administration's preference for coal.

Maria, what what are the opponents say about this person?

Well, they say it would have the opposite effect that you know, proponents, supporters say that it would help stabilize utility cost.

We keep hearing that, you know, mama can't afford their her electricity bill and that this is one way of helping mama and all of the other folks, in the state of West Virginia who are struggling right now with utility bills.

But opponents sa that it would have the absolute opposite effect, that it would drive utility rates through the roof.

In fact, Senator Eric Tarr, had, you know, had had some data that he showed that, indicated that they would have a, you know, $80 million additional cost for West Virginia ratepayers if this had gon through in the last 12 months.

So a lot of a, a lot of opponents feel like it would not have the result they think it would.

This is going to come down to the last minute.

And this is almost a political pin pong game too, isn't it Chris.

Yeah.

As Maria alluded to earlier, 420, which is the original bill has not seen a lot of success on the House side.

It seemed to be very close t passing out of the House Energy Committee earlier this week.

We may still see it, you know, clawed out of there today or tomorrow.

However, the senators have not sat idly waiting for that.

They have tried twice now, in two different bills to add this list, this language in in the House has already pretty roundly rejected that from one bill.

And then, we saw just yesterday, the, the clip that we alluded to earlier, there's a second attempt.

We'll see how the House reacts to that today.

So we'll keep an eye out that that's why we're going to be at final hours tomorrow night for four hours to see how this comes through.

Chris, as our education reporter, there's been a big concern about the school aid formula.

I mean, throughout the state, we're seeing counties having to consolidate to close schools, to have kids.

Bus two hours like they had to four decades ago, like my wife did.

You know, out in Mason County.

There's a we need to change the school aid formula.

So, President Hardesty and everybody on downs has to address declining enrollment.

Where's the legislature at on that?

Yeah.

So, as you say, you know, this is not a new issue.

We've been talking about this for years.

Educational leader on on every side of this issue recogniz that something needs to be done.

The biggest thing, that Hardesty harps on and a lot of other people do as well, is that we haven't seen substantial change to the school aid funding formula for close to 30 years now.

And there's just significant differences in what West Virginia looks like today than what it looked like back in even the 90s.

And so primarily, that means enrollment population in West Virginia has declined in population.

And that has affected our schools.

A lot of times when you talk about these school closures, you hear about, building utilization rates.

It doesn't matter how many students are in a building, it still costs the same amount of money to keep that place open and keep it from falling into disrepair.

You have to run the Hvac system.

You have to keep the lights on.

And so, there's no accounting for that type of thing.

When you have 20 students in a school that was built for 500, in the current school Aid formula.

So what we have seen, Randi, just very briefly, is a lot of different attempts to address this, kind of piecemeal.

The bill that seems to be read to pass is going to be a shift to not immediately, but in about three years to, a block grant system.

The funding formula is a formula.

It has, seven steps to it.

Realistically, there's about 14 or more triggers within that system.

Very complicated, very complex.

Which is why it's taken a long tim to really approach this head on.

But by 2029, will what this bill proposes is a $6,100 block grant per studen at a minimum of 1200 students.

For the smaller schools, that's about $7.5 million.

And then, a doubling, in certain cases for special needs students, I guess some of the magic words of concern and all of that are in three years.

I mean, three years now where is the Hope scholarship?

Maria isn't taking three years.

There's activity on tha from this legislative session.

Correct?

There, there is and there has been.

You know, one of the things with the Hope scholarship is that it now, for the first time in the coming school year, the fall of this year, 2026.

Any parent can put their child through the Hope Scholarship Program, which provides money for you to transfer your child to private school or to homeschool.

And this is in the in the previous years, the Hope scholarship has only been available to parents who are switching from, from public to private.

And this year, it's open to everyone.

And the efforts to get that tied to family income, did not really go anywhere this session or haven't yet.

We have you know, a day and a half left.

So who knows?

But, you know, the the the hop I think of that legislation was that you would tie it to incom so that parents who had a more moderate income but wanted to have that school choice, wanted to perhaps to send their kids to private school, would have some support for doing that.

And on that subcategory of homeschooling there was some activity there.

And some concerns about, the whole impetus behind homeschooling, the relationship between homeschooling and truancy.

So some heavy concern that the legislature had to deal with.

Well, so the truancy bill is still kind of working its way through the system right now.

You know one of the problems with truancy is that right now, if you have a child who is truant, the chil has that against their record.

Unfortunately, it may not always be the child's fault.

It may be the the fault of the parent.

And particularly for younger children.

And the other issue is that by calling it truant, that allows people who are trying to work on this issue to get courts involved, and courts can then open up a broad array of services that can provide hope and help for that child and perhaps for the parents involved.

And so that legislation is also now working its way through.

Anything else overall on funding the myriad of, of of issues in our school system?

Yeah.

Careful, Randi.

That's you know, that could be an entire series of shows.

But but just to speak directly to the truancy issue, you know, chronic absenteeism has continued to be an issue for years now.

We saw it addressed in legislature of very recent years last year, the year before.

And the concern here is that home schooling, may be utilized as a way to avoid accountability.

At every level of scale, we're not just talking about abuse and neglect cases.

We're just talking about, you know, absenteeism specifically kids just not showing up.

And so the idea behind the truancy bill, I believe, is to, as you say, take the courts out of it.

The benefit of the courts is you open it up to the entire community to help this kid.

The idea of this truancy bill i let's do that more immediately instead of waiting until it's been ten, 20, 30 days of absences.

Let's address this immediately inside the school and just attack the problem at the root.

We also can't talk about this without talking about release law, which is a bill to kind of pump the brakes on homeschooling when there is suspected or even more accurately, investigation into a child abuse and neglect case.

And so those two things, for a lot of people, are kin of two sides of the same coin.

Unfortunately really, as law is approaching, you know, ten years and I believe it' been seven years that it's been presented in the legislature.

No action.

These are decisions that ar made by our elected officials.

And when it comes to elected officials, election bills.

Chris, you kept an eye on a couple of them that deal with vote registration and changing rules for electioneering and absentee ballots.

Yeah, the absentee ballots, I think is the most impactful one, especially in an aging population like ours.

You know, West Virginia has, pretty significant or at least robust restrictions on who can apply for an absentee ballot.

But the big thing that we saw in this bill is that those absentee ballots will not be counted unless they are received by the county clerk at the end of election day, 8 p.m.

Election day.

They need to be in the clerk's hands.

That is a substantial change to what has historically been the deadline for absentee ballots, which is as much as a week or two weeks after the election on what's called the canvasing night.

That when everything is formally, accounted for and the actual official election results go out.

And so there's a big concern here.

On one side, you know, the people who, who support this bill say, that's confusing.

You don't know when that day is going to be.

Each county does their canvasing on different days.

We want it to be on a given day.

Why not make it Election day?

It's right there in the name.

It's election day.

On the other side, you have people that say, a lot of people don't make up their minds until the day of.

And, it used to be that you could postmark by Election Day and that would count.

And that's no longer the case.

And people people should know that foster care, child protective services, something that they have been trying to deal with for years to try to get a better staff, to try to make sure that ever county has enough CPS workers.

How's the legislature dealt with that, Maria?

You know, it has been, I think, fair to say that a lot of the lawmaker who are dealing with this issue and a couple of different fronts, in terms of legislation, I think they recognize that what we're doing right now, you know, really isn't working, despite the fact that there has been tremendous effort by the folks who are out there doing the really hard work.

At the end of the day, what we're what we have right now isn't working.

And so one of the thing has been an effort to privatize, CPS, and that means that the CPS workers would, would maintain jurisdiction over the investigations and, and the hard work of all of that, but would turn over some of the, some of the check marks that have to be made to a private company.

And there has been, a lot of opposition to that.

Yeah.

This is actually another bill that we've seen an attempt to shift that languag into a completely unrelated bill at the last minute, out of concern that the changes this is a Senate bill.

The concern that some of the changes in the House side of things we saw this is a pilot program, a reduction from six counties to two.

Some concerns about how that contract is going to be handed out.

And so we have seen some efforts as recently as I believe, Tuesday or Wednesday night to try and insert that language into a different bill.

What is often or sometimes referred to as a fat possum running at midnight.

We've got less than a minute left and 20s.

What?

What are you looking forward t tomorrow night at final hours?

You know, I'm just looking forward to seeing what makes it across the finish line, because there's bee a lot of playing ping pong here.

I think.

Yeah I think, you know, we just saw, we're speaking to on Friday.

We just sa the governor hand down recently.

His line item vetoes.

It's goin to be very interesting to see, how both chambers react to that.

And any last minute changes to appropriations we just saw yesterday.

More appropriations to the Hope scholarship fund for example.

So, as always, the budget to the very last minute, still a lot of decisions to be made will be there, will be listenin will be both here in the studio and on the upper rotunda floor, if I'm not mistaken.

Talking to legislators.

And we'll see you then.

Thanks again for joining us.

Tune in to our live broadcast of the legislature today, the final hours from 8 p.m.

until the closing gavel at midnight.

If you missed any storie or interviews on the legislature today, visit our website and search for that show.

You can see every episod and also episodes of our podcast with all of our radio coverage of the session called The Legislature this week.

The last episode will drop tomorrow morning at 5 a.m.. So you can listen with your Saturday morning coffee.

I'm Randy Yohe.

I'll see you right here tomorrow for final hours beginning at 8 p.m.. Support for the legislature today is provided by West Virginia University.

Serving our stat with pride, impact, and purpose through education, health care, and discovery.

Let's go.

Visit wvu.edu.