CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Roughly 100 people flocked to the state Culture Center Thursday evening to attend the PEIA Finance Board’s final public meeting regarding proposed increases.
Nearly 30 educators, state workers and retirees under the agency addressed the board and posed their concerns and how the increases will affect their lives and careers moving forward.
The proposed increases for the 2025-26 year are to accommodate for the immense anticipated prescription drug costs in the near future, as those costs have far exceeded available funds. With the proposal, employees under the agency are looking at premium increases of 14% for the state fund and 16% for the local governments. The proposal also has increases in deductibles of 40%, which is an average of $300.
The PEIA finance board held meetings across the state over the last two weeks, including stops in Beckley, Wheeling, Martinsburg, Morgantown and finally Charleston. The board also held a virtual meeting earlier in the week.
Dale Lee
President of the West Virginia Education Association Dale Lee says Thursday night’s public meeting gave the PEIA board members and Legislators a chance to see the result of the increases first-hand.
“I’ve attended all the in-person meetings, and you hear the same thing. It’s actually putting a face to what these changes will do,” Lee said. “That’s why it makes this important, is you get to actually see a face instead of just seeing how some policy is going to change.”
Robert McCloud, a teacher and member of the Kanawha County AFT executive board, says those under the agency are at a tipping point.
“We are at a crossroads where we can’t afford to have PEIA, but on the reverse, we can’t afford not to have it,” McCloud said.
PEIA’s original five-year plan showed retirees in the state having increases of 10%, but the new proposal has retirees seeing a 12% increase, with increases escalating to 15% in 2027, 17.5% in 2028, and 20% in 2029.
Spud Terry, a retiree of over two decades who serves as president of the retirees with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in West Virginia, says retirees on a fixed income can’t afford the changes.
Spud Terry
“Bottom line is that the retirees, like me, just cannot afford more and more,” Terry said.
Dinah Adkins, the Kanawha County Education Association President, says the treatment of state workers, educators and retirees will not help bring more people into the Mountain State.
“We’ve got to take care of our employees. We’ve got to build up a system that makes West Virginia look good because right now, if I were a business coming into West Virginia and I saw how your public employees were treated and how your teachers are the lowest (paid) in the nation, I’d high-tail it out of here and head someplace else,” Adkins said.
Once the PEIA Finance Board meets in December to discuss the proposal further and make a vote, the matter will fall into the hands of Governor-elect Patrick Morrisey and the Legislature. In 2023, legislation was passed that mandated the plans to go to an 80-20 split.
A total of two Legislators attended the public meeting, one of those being Mike Pushkin. Pushkin, who also serves as West Virginia Democratic Party Chairman, says a lot of the weight of the issue with PEIA falls on the shoulders of the legislature.
Mike Pushkin
“Much of this falls on the Legislature, and I don’t envy your position here as members of this board,” Pushkin said to the PEIA board Thursday evening. “I’ve been coming to these hearings over the last 10 years since I’ve been in the Legislature. We’re saying all the same things, and all the same problems keep re-occurring because it hasn’t been a priority of the Legislature or the Executive branch for that matter. I don’t think a single one of you were on this board when I first started coming here, so the problems remain the same even though the board changes.”
Pushkin says it was a disappointment that nearly every Legislator and person of power in the state failed to make it to the public meeting.
“You know who’s not a priority of the Legislator? Y’all. People who take care of the state. People who take care of us. Not a priority in our state Legislature,” Pushkin said. “It’s sad that I’m currently the only legislator in the room. We should be required to listen to y’all. How can we possibly make laws that impact your day-to-day lives, and we can’t even bother to be here to listen to you?”
Pushkin also says he noticed another important absence on Thursday evening.
“There’s sadly only two Legislators here, but let’s not let anybody else off the hook. We are in the seat of government, is the governor here? Is anybody from the governor’s office here, Senator-elect Justice, anyone from his office?” Pushkin said. “I believe he said just a few short years ago, ‘not on his watch’ for another raise to your premiums. Does anyone remember him saying that?”
“Even though the Executive doesn’t make the laws, we all know they have a bullied pulpit and if they wanted to get it done, they could put a governor’s bill out there and push for that in the budget,” Pushkin said. “They set the budget, they work with the legislature to get it done and it has not been a priority, and that’s why it’s not getting done because it’s not a priority.”
Matthew Lyon, a teacher in Putnam County, says the board can get ahold of those in power more easily than state workers, and thus, could help be an ally for those affected.
“I don’t think you’re our enemy, on the board, but we need you to be our ally,” Lyon said. “You probably have a lot more power than any of us to get ahold of the governor or legislators, and we need you to tell them that we need help to fix this.”
The PEIA Finance Board will now vote on the 2025-26 plan on December 5. Changes will go into effect at the beginning of July.