SB409 HFA M. POLING, PERRY, PASDON, ARMSTEAD, D. EVANS AND AMBLER 3-7 #1

    Delegates M. Poling, Perry, Pasdon, Armstead, D. Evans and Ambler move to amend the committee amendment on page 41, after section 5, after line 21, by inserting the following:

ARTICLE 3. STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS.

§18-3-9c. Reduction of personnel necessary to carry out the duties and meet departmental goals.

     (a) The Legislature finds that the 2012 Education Efficiency Audit of West Virginia’s Primary and Secondary Education System made several findings regarding the West Virginia Department of Education, including:

     (1) For the fiscal year 2011, the department lists a total of six hundred thirty-seven positions;

     (2) In addition to the superintendent and deputy superintendent, the department has four assistant superintendents, nineteen executive directors and twenty-seven assistant directors, one division assistant chief and one executive director/chief financial officer;

     (3) In fiscal year 2011, the department had a total payroll of $45.7 million;

     (4) The West Virginia Department of Education has the second highest ratio of state primary and secondary education administrators and staff on the state level to students enrolled in primary and secondary schools in the nation and the ratio is greatly in excess of that in any surrounding state; and

     (5) Taxpayers as well as primary and secondary education students in West Virginia deserve the most efficient use of scarce education resources possible and classroom education should be the primary focus of any education paradigm.

    (b) After June 30, 2017, the number of employees of the department may not exceed a ratio greater than one employee for every two thousand enrolled students in the state. For the purposes of this section, “department employee or employees” does not include the employees or the positions of employees who:

    (1) Are teachers and personnel who work in classrooms;

    (2) Work in juvenile and adult institutional programs;

    (3) Work in the Schools for the Deaf and the Blind;

    (4) Work in Regional Education Service Agencies in positions established on or before January 1, 2014;

    (5) Work in the Cedar Lakes Conference Center;

    (6) Work in the Office of Education Performance Audits;

    (7) Are funded through federal grants or other non-state resources; and

    (8) Are maintenance of effort positions required to qualify for federal funds and grants.

    (c)The superintendent shall develop and adopt a strategic plan and policy to meet the ratio provided in subsection (b) of this section, which may include, but is not limited to, the following:

    (1) Restructure the organization of the department with emphasis on meeting the major educational goals and functions of the department;

    (2) Identification of and, to the extent practicable, adoption of best practices used or recommended by professionally recognized resources in the education community;

    (3) Increase the span of supervisory control to not less than a one to ten ratio of supervisors to subordinates to facilitate the reduction in the number of offices within the department;

    (4) Reduction of the number of funded positions in the department; and

    (5) Implementation of additional cross-department initiatives to reduce duplication of work and effort to ensure funds are used as efficiently as possible.”

And

on page 1, line 1, by striking the enacting section and inserting a new enacting section, to read as follows:

    “That §18-2-5 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted; that §18-2E-5 of said code be amended and reenacted; that said code be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated §18-3-9a; that §18-9A-7 of said code be amended and reenacted; that §18A-2-3 and §18A-2-7a of said code be amended and reenacted; that §18A-3-1, §18A-3-1a, §18A-3-1b and §18A-3-2a of said code be amended and reenacted; that §18A-4-7a of said code be amended and reenacted; that §18B-1D-4 of said code be amended and reenacted; and that §18B-3C-4 of said code be amended and reenacted, all to read as follows:”

 Adopted

Rejected