CHARLESTON, W.Va. — From election bills, budget losses and increases, to various other issues that county officials face from year to year, roughly 350 of them are coming together again to work through those matters.
The West Virginia Association of Counties hosted its annual Conference of Counties Monday in Charleston. It was the second day of the three-day conference being held at the Embassy Suites downtown.
Mason County Clerk and current WVACo President Diana Cromley said the conference brings in county and circuit clerks, assessors, commissioners, prosecutors and sheriffs from across the state to come together to present the various issues they are facing in their counties before legislators during the 60-day regular legislative session.
“It’s just a good time to get together with all of the elected officials and discuss issues, legislative issues, and other issues surrounding our office,” Cromley said.
During the three day event, county officials would also be networking, hearing keynote speakers, and organizing into break-out groups.
Governor Patrick Morrisey was a speaker at Monday’s luncheon during the conference.
State and local officials would be discussing AI, property tax regulations, crisis intervention techniques among other issues during the course of the event.
Cromley said some of the key issues for county clerks included various election bills they planned to present before legislators.
She said the WVACo has two major issues they’re lobbying for.
One of those issues Cromley said is the use of the term “quit claim deed,” which is a loss of revenue to counties when deeds are recorded.
“Basically saying it’s a quit claim when in fact we find that it’s probably not, so to the tune of several thousands of dollars, counties are losing revenue when a deed is a recorded, so we’re working on that issue,” she said.
Cromley said another issue they’re working on is a county compensation bill for elected officials where they are seeking a Consumer Price Index increase. She said this is one they have been presenting before the legislature year after year, but as long as their budget will meet the parameters, county commissioners are allowed to give CPI increases to elected officials.
She said with all of these various issues being presented in a transitionary year, they can only hope for the best, however. 
“There’s a lot of delegates, a lot of new delegates, so I can’t always say how successful we’ll be, but we will continue as a body to be unified on these issues, we vote as a board to make certain that we’re all on the same page and we all lobby for the same things,” said Cromley.
Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney and former WVACo President Matt Harvey said there’s also a multitude of other issues each of the 55 counties face individually that they are there to discuss as well.
He said a lot of them are highly technical in nature, so it’s important all local officials can come to the event to discuss them.
“There may be an oversight or an unintended consequence in a previous bill that’s ran, or you know, circumstances change and the law needs to be updated, and so who better to express those opinions on what needs to change than the people who are actually executing the role of their duties locally,” Harvey said.
He said there are a total of 444 local county officials in West Virginia and constituents see those officials out in the community on a daily basis.
Harvey said it’s also important for state officials like Morrisey to be at the event as well to hear what each local seat is dealing with, and then those local officials can take those solutions back to their people.
“For the governor to come in and show support to us, we can be his eyes and ears and express our concerns regarding local issues that really have a day to day impact on the citizens of West Virginia,” he said.
He said for being a small state, there’s always a diverse array of needs to tackle across West Virginia.
“West Virginia is a beautiful state and it’s very geographically diverse,” Harvey said. “You have the Eastern Panhandle, you have your Potomac Highlands, you have your Southern Coalfields, you have your industrial rust belt area in Wheeling and the Ohio River, and so we just all have different needs, but what unites us is our love for West Virginia and seeing West Virginia become the best version of itself.”
In addition, the event Monday also included the presentation of the Richard “Dick” Shelton Lighthouse Award given to a county official recognized by their peers for outstanding service to government, as well as the Patti Hamilton Imagine Award, which is presented to a county project best exemplifying the improvement of citizen’s lives.