State lawmakers created the Family Treatment Courts program in West Virginia back in 2019. Two years later, they were pleased enough with the program to make it permanent — under the state Supreme Court of Appeals’ supervision.

For a while, this important program — 14 Family Treatment Courts in 18 counties, working to provide resources for parents overcoming substance use disorders while moving toward the safe reunification of families — was funded by federal grants and McKesson Corporation settlement funds through the West Virginia Office of Drug Control Policy.

This year, the courts had to rely on patched-together grant funding sources, including $280,000 announced in August from a State Opioid Response grant, which will support the program through Sept. 30; and now up to $1,162,038 through the Public Defender Services of West Virginia’s Impacting Child Abuse and Neglect program, which should fund the courts for the remainder of the fiscal year.

It became necessary to find such funding after lawmakers chose NOT to allocate money requested by the state Supreme Court in its 2026 request to fund the treatment courts.

Remember, these are people who never miss an opportunity to talk about how much they care about children and families in the Mountain State, and who claim they want to support proven solutions to harm being done by the substance abuse epidemic. Many of these lawmakers are the same people who wanted to give this program a try, in 2019.

But they’ve missed one chance to put (the people’s) money where their mouths are on this front. They’ll get another one in the upcoming regular session.

“We are committed to working with lawmakers as they craft next year’s budget bill to include funding for Family Treatment Courts,” said Justice C. Haley Bunn, who will serve as chief justice in 2026. “As we share more about the positive outcomes from this program, our hope is that lawmakers understand the need to provide stable funding for it.”

Goodness knows what excuses they’ll come up with, if they don’t.