West Virginia Press Association Staff Report
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The Senate Committee on Government Organization, on Thursday, advanced two bills; the first to update the coordinate system for survey completion, and the second to modify compensation for firefighters required to work on state holidays.
Sponsored by Committee Chair Jack David Woodrum, R-Summers, and explained by Committee Counsel Carl Fletcher, the committee substitute for SB 540, “Would update the West Virginia coordinate system which may be used to define the geospatial position of any point or points within the state by locating it’s point on an east-west, north-south axis.”
“The bill eliminates the division of the state into north and south zones,” Fletcher added, “And eliminates use of the references to north and south zones in describing the location of a tract of land that lies in both zones.”
According to Fletcher, the committee substitute makes several technical changes from the introduced version of the bill, including the “conversion of meters to feet,” and “several other stylistic changes.”
On-hand to discuss the bill was John Green, with the West Virginia Society of Professional Surveyors.
“The society is in support of this bill,” Green told committee members. “Basically, the purpose of it is to keep our current law in compliance with the federal state plane coordinates system that are established by the federal government and the National Geodetic Survey (NGS).”
According to Green, the National Geodetic Survey is being updated, and West Virginia’s coordinate system must also be updated to maintain alignment.
“Any time you project the surface of the Earth onto a flat plane to make maps, which is what these systems do, there’s a distortion between what you measure on the map and what you measure on the ground,” Green explained. “The objective of the NGS is to keep that within a certain range.”
The committee substitute for SB 540 will now be reported to the full Senate for further consideration.
Next on the agenda was committee substitute for SB 557. Introduced by Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, the bill was once again explained by Fletcher.
“It (SB 557) is intended to clarify compensation for municipal firefighters who are required to work on a holiday,” Fletcher explained. “The bill doesn’t change the rate of compensation, which is time-and-a-half, or the compensatory time allowed if the municipality chooses that methodology, but adds that the firefighter is entitled to payment or comp-time for his or her entire shift, even if the shift spans two calendar days.”
“The bill establishes that firefighters are entitled to compensation for an entire shift, even if only a portion of the holiday shift actually falls on the holiday,” Fletcher added.
As Fletcher explained with the previous bill, the committee substitute for SB 557 makes “technical changes,” before noting that the most common shift worked by a firefighter is 8 a.m. until 8 a.m.
“Some municipalities have taken the position that, ‘You only get holiday or comp-time for the portion of the shift that falls on the holiday,’” Fletcher said. “On the other side, if you take time off, they charge you for the entire shift.”
“It seems a fairness issue,” Fletcher said.
The committee substitute was unanimously adopted, and will now be advanced to the full Senate with the committee’s recommendation for passage.
