photo by: Emma Delk

Marshall County Board of Education President John Miller listens during Tuesday night's meeting.

Marshall County Board of Education members signed a resolution urging state leaders to stabilize the Public Employees Insurance Agency during Tuesday’s meeting.

PEIA provides healthcare benefits to West Virginia public employees, including teachers, school staff and administrators who work in public schools. The resolution urged West Virginia state leaders to “take immediate action to stabilize PEIA to prevent further cost increases and reductions in benefits.”

The West Virginia Education Association and the West Virginia chapter of the American Federation of Teachers wrote the resolution. Local leadership from both organizations attended Tuesday’s board meeting to ask for board members’ support in adopting the resolution.

Stephanie Brown, president of the Marshall County Education Association, informed board members of the “continuous instability” of school employees’ health insurance.

“If we look back to 2023, public employees faced several challenges, especially at increased costs across the board, including premiums, co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums,” Brown said. “They also added a spousal surcharge of $147 per month for any PEIA policyholder whose working spouse has access to health care through their employer.”

Brown said the various increases in policyholder costs were “no longer sustainable for West Virginia employees.” She noted this year’s increases were “devastating” and would “drive more education employees away when we already face a huge shortage in positions across the state.”

“The fix has been to offer pay increases to offset the rising costs,” Brown noted. “However, for many of our employees, the pay increase barely covered their increase in premiums or didn’t cover it fully. West Virginia public employees are going backward instead of forward, and we can no longer sit idly by and absorb every rising cost.”

Josh Gary, AFT-WV vice president and AFT-Marshall County president, said the increase in healthcare costs for public employees placed “undue burdens” on “hard-working employees and retirees, who are feeling it the most.”

All board members signed the resolution urging the state to stabilize PEIA.

Board member Lori Kestner said she knew of three public employees who were not teachers who quit their public jobs within the last three weeks for jobs that pay less but offer more benefits than their public jobs.

“Those decisions are hard when you love what you do, but then you look at the bottom line,” Kestner said. “When you look at the bottom line, it’s about needing to afford the things you need to survive on.”

The board members also unanimously approved the 2025-26 school calendar on Tuesday. The calendar will now be sent to the West Virginia Department of Education for approval. Superintendent Shelby Haines said she was “not sure” when the state department would consider the calendar.

Haines said feedback from school employees regarding the calendar “overwhelmingly” favored a shorter spring break, which would allow the school year to end before Memorial Day.

Board President John Miller said this was the “earliest he could remember” the board approving a calendar.

The board also unanimously approved the authorization of Haines to execute and record the required Notice of Federal Interest in certain school property arising out of a COVID-related federal grant. Haines said the county was working with Bowles Rice attorney Mark D’Antoni to ensure they were meeting all the federal requirements for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds the county used.

“Essentially, for any of the buildings where you use ESSER funds, which are federal dollars for building improvements, you have to look through some deeds and make sure that we’re meeting requirements for the money we use,” Haines said. “Central [Elementary School] is the only place we did that with the HVAC project that was going on down there. It’s a requirement that we have someone do that [make sure the county is meeting all federal requirements for the ESSER].”

Miller credited Haines and MCS Facilities Director Michael Price with acquiring the funds and “jumping through all the hoops necessary” to use the ESSER funds according to the guidelines.