Gazette-Mail. June 21, 2023.
Editorial: Justice wasn’t careful enough with COVID spending
Gov. Jim Justice’s mounting legal problems appear to be getting worse still. The governor, who is at the center of all manner of lawsuits and collections efforts stemming from hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid loans, legal settlements, fines and fees mostly stemming from his business dealings, is now apparently under the microscope for how he handled federal COVID-19 relief funds.
When the COVID-19 pandemic was still raging, and Justice began waffling on vaccination efforts, he hatched a plan. The state would conduct a sweepstakes, as other states were doing, offering prizes large and small to those who got vaccinated against the virus that ended up killing more than 1 million Americans between 2020 and 2022.
Unable to detach his own vanity from the project, Justice named the COVID lottery after his dog, calling it the “Do It For Babydog” sweepstakes. Prizes included cash, scholarships, firearms and trucks.
At the time, the Gazette-Mail’s Phil Kabler raised questions about federal spending on prizes and the efficacy of the campaign in general. Kabler noted the trucks given away had been purchased at high prices and left winners with high tax bills. He and others at the Gazette-Mail also noted that the campaign didn’t push vaccine numbers up significantly at all, although Justice continued to tout the program as nothing short of a smashing success.
A little more than two years after Justice announced the sweepstakes, other people are starting to ask questions. Namely, federal investigators.
According to a report this week from CBS News, Justice’s office has been subpoenaed by those investigators, who are focusing on auto dealers that supplied the trucks awarded as prizes and how much those vehicles cost state taxpayers.
The CBS report mentioned Grace Fowler, of Nettie in Nicholas County, who won what the Governor’s Office described as a “custom outfitted” Dodge Ram truck. Justice, with Babydog in tow, delivered the truck to Fowler and posed for photos with her on July 14, 2021.
According to the CBS report, the “free” truck came with an inflated value and a $20,000 personal property tax bill for Fowler. She was forced to sell the truck, and told CBS that, if she ever won a prize again, she’d tell whoever was giving it away to keep it. CBS reported that several other truck winners sold their prizes and noted, as Kabler did about two years ago, that the trucks came with luxury packages that pushed up their assessed value.
The national news outlet also included information from a study that showed vaccination incentives, like the “Do It For Babydog” initiative, had little to no effect on vaccination rates.
It’s unclear what any of this means for Justice at the moment, but it’s likely not the end of government inquiries into his administration’s COVID spending. As the Gazette-Mail reported, Justice moved roughly $28 million in federal COVID funds into his discretionary Governor’s Gifts, Grants and Donations fund. The transfer occurred right before a deadline that would have required the state to return the money to the federal government.
Compounding the problem, Justice is believed to have used $10 million of that money as part of nearly $14 million he allocated to Marshall University last year to build a baseball stadium.
In March, Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Inspector General asking the agency to review Justice’s transfer of the funds, which Tarr likened to money laundering.
Whatever might come of all this, it points back to a basic problem identified early on in the pandemic, when federal money was first allotted for everything from medical equipment to loans to keep businesses afloat: Justice and his administration officials acted as the only arbiters of the funds. It was difficult to determine where money was going and why, let alone whether it was appropriated wisely or ethically.
Justice’s current financial woes, as it pertains to his businesses, suggest he’s not great with money. He shouldn’t have been trusted to concoct a vaccine sweepstakes or determine how federal funds were distributed without strict oversight.
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The Intelligencer. June 19, 2023.
Editorial: Tall Task Ahead For New DHHR Leaders
We’re making progress on the split of West Virginia’s Department of Health and Human Resources into three agencies. Late last month, Gov. Jim Justice announced the leaders of those new agencies. Dr. Sherri Young will lead the Department of Health. She thanked the governor for the opportunity “to see what else can be done for the health of our West Virginia citizens.”
It is encouraging to know Young understands the agency already has the right resources in place.
Dr. Synthia Persily will lead the Department of Human Services.
“This new vital agency will serve the most vulnerable people in our state, including children, families, and those in need of income and medical and healthcare assistance, those needing food and nutrition services, and those experiencing behavioral health challenges,” Persily said. “My mission in this role will be to effectively lead this transition for this division while also respecting the dignity and rights of our employees, but also who we serve.”
And Wheeling resident Michael Caruso will lead the Department of Health Facilities.
“I am delighted to join the DHHR program. It’s a great benefit for the state and I’m looking forward to joining the team as well and working with you,” Caruso said.
Given his administrative background at Wheeling Hospital and then as CEO of the former Ohio Valley Medical Center, Caruso should slide easily into the role of handling DHHR-owned hospitals.
Well-suited as they may be, this new team has to answer to more than the nearly 5,000 state employees in its charge. These leaders will have to answer to the people of West Virginia if enlarging the bureaucracy does not result in the improved service to Mountain State residents we were promised.
Again, this team seems ready to try to deliver those results. While we hope that they are, the next several months will reveal the truth.
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Herald-Dispatch. June 20, 2023.
Editorial: Huggins’ fall is a cautionary tale for all
Bob Huggins’ fall from grace is a cautionary tale of how times change and how people act also must change.
Just last month, Huggins, the long-time and successful basketball coach at West Virginia University, was on a live broadcast on a Cincinnati radio station joking with the host about his days as coach at the University of Cincinnati. Huggins must have forgotten he was on the air when he not once but twice uttered an anti-gay slur.
When called out on it, Huggins apologized quickly, but he still faced punishment from WVU. His salary of $4.15 million — the highest of any state employee in West Virginia — was reduced by $1 million. The $1 million will instead go to WVU’s LGBTQ+ Center, a mental health center at the university and other groups that support marginalized communities. His contract was amended from a multi-year deal to a year-by-year agreement to end on April 30, 2024.
Obviously, he was on a short leash, and another indiscretion could not be tolerated. This past Friday night, Huggins was pulled over by Pittsburgh police for driving with a shredded tire and his driver’s side door open. He failed a field sobriety test. Plastic bags containing beer cans were found in his vehicle. He was arrested and charged with DUI. It was his second DUI arrest. The first ended his job at Cincinnati.
The Pittsburgh arrest was the final straw. Huggins resigned the next day before WVU could fire him.
At age 69, Huggins should have known that you always assume a microphone is on and any indiscretion can end your career. At one time anti-gay slurs were common and considered funny by a lot of men, but that time is long gone. And Huggins has lived long enough to know that driving while intoxicated isn’t a joke; it’s a danger to the drunk driver and to others on the road, on a sidewalk, in a nearby building — just about anywhere.
This is not to condemn Huggins. Others have done that, and there is no need to pile on from here. He clearly has problems that must be dealt with. So have we all. What we can do is learn from his experience.
In this day of cameras and microphones everywhere, things that once could be covered up are now out there for the world to see. Stepping out in public exposes our weaknesses, ignorance and bad attitudes for all to comment on. Huggins is a high-profile person for whom the stakes are higher. He won’t be the last famous person to fall and pay the consequences for his actions. It’s up to each individual to avoid that fate.
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