By RUSTY MARKS
The State Journal
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Some stranded motorists may have to fend for themselves if a bill passed Tuesday, March 14 by the West Virginia House of Delegates makes it through the Senate and onto the desk of Gov. Jim Justice.
House members voted 58-41 Tuesday to eliminate the state’s Courtesy Patrol, which provides 16-hour daily roadside assistance and monitoring of the Mountain State’s interstates and four-lane highways.
Republican Gov. Cecil Underwood set up the Courtesy Patrol in the 1990s as a welfare-to-work program to both patrol the state’s roads, help stranded motorists and provide jobs for Courtesy Patrol drivers. The program initially provided 24-hour coverage, but in recent years patrols were scaled back to 16 hours, including overnight patrols.
Last year, state highways officials requested the Courtesy Patrol be defunded and responsibility for the patrol transferred to the Division of Highways.
However, House Bill 2007, passed Tuesday, would eliminate the Courtesy Patrol altogether, transfer its funding to the state road fund, and prohibit DOH from reconstituting the patrols. Bill sponsors said the change would save the state about $4 million a year.
The Citizens Conservation Corps that administers the Courtesy Patrol has been heavily criticized for the salaries made by its top two executives, who make more than $280,000 and more than $121,000 a year.
But Delegate Ed Evans, D-McDowell, spoke strongly against eliminating the Courtesy Patrol. He said getting rid of the program would do nothing about the salaries of the Conservation Corps directors, and would put 12 people with families out of work.
“We told our constituents we would create jobs,” Evans said. “This is job-killing legislation.”
Evans said the Courtesy Patrol is not only a model for welfare-to-work programs and an important resource for stranded motorists and for cleaning up roadside debris, but is also the “eyes and ears” for the state’s Amber Alert system, helping to look for missing children.
Other delegates pointed out many of the services the patrols provide to stranded motorists can be provided by AAA or drivers’ insurance companies.
The bill is headed to the Senate for further consideration.
Meanwhile, in the Senate on Monday, senators passed a House bill backed by West Virginia University, Marshall University and the state osteopathic school designed to give higher education institutions more leeway in laying off staff.
House Bill 2542, originally passed by the House of Delegates, would eliminate restrictions on universities firing the most senior staff members first, and eliminate requirements that senior staff be the first recalled to work. The bill would only apply to staff hired after July 1, 2017, and does apply to faculty.
The bill has completed legislation and now goes to Gov. Jim Justice for action.
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