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West Virginia Must Balance Savings And Service

Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced this week that more than $168 million in savings had been found after audits of executive branch services. And, on the surface, he was right to be impressed with what BDO USA found. Potential savings will bring up plenty of questions for the Office of Technology to answer, as recommendations included saving $865,000 by shutting down an unnecessary data center, saving $456,000 per year by canceling third-party data storage contracts (one has to wonder who will be in charge of making sure the state does not lose access to any vital data), and saving ...

Helping High Schoolers

“We treated you like a kid until you walk across the stage and we’re like, ‘see ya.’ That doesn’t work,” said Canton City Schools Superintendent Jeff Talbert during a roundtable discussion on transforming Ohio high school education. He’s right, but what do we do about it? How do we prepare young people to move into a job market that looks nothing like it did ten years ago, let alone the structure of a public high school education was solidified generations ago. According to a report by WCMH, XQ Institute and Battelle Education gathered education experts and state ...

Bill Flanigan Makes A Great Addition To The W.Va. Supreme Court

West Virginia just emerged from a primary election that was glutted with negative campaigning, from the mailers stuffed into mailboxes to the TV ads running on loop. Yet there were some candidates to refused to latch onto that negativity and partisanship. West Virginia Del. Bill Flanigan was one of those candidates. And he was rewarded with becoming one of the newest justices on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Flanigan defeated incumbent Justice Tom Ewing last Tuesday, and will be sworn in as a new justice as soon as Gov. Patrick Morrisey certifies the election. Flanigan ...

SMART529 Helps West Virginia Students

With all the talk about the huge sums of money that were invested into political campaigns in West Virginia in an attempt to affect the primary and now the general election here, it was easy to miss another announcement. According to the state treasurer’s office, West Virginia-based account holders have surpassed $1 billion in total assets in the SMART529 program, in an attempt to greatly improve our children’s futures. “This achievement means West Virginians realize the benefit and value of investing in our state’s SMART529 plan to save for their child’s education,” said ...

Vacationing Locally

State officials celebrated Tourism Day at the Ohio Statehouse earlier this week. As they did so, they highlighted many of the destinations and experiences that make the Buckeye State the heart of it all. Surely, there are Ohio destinations that are known all over the country — maybe even around the world — such as the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland or Cedar Point in Sandusky. But our lesser known gems are what really makes Ohio worth the trip. “Summer in Ohio means county fairs, lake trips, family road trips, baseball games, ...

It’s Time For A New Approach For West Virginia

Gov. Patrick Morrisey invested into getting some of his candidates nominated in last week’s primary election. Let us hope the governor takes that same passion into a much more meaningful project for our state’s future — turning around decades of population decline. On Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau released its latest population figures for cities and towns, based on July 1, 2025 estimates. As expected, only a few cities in West Virginia have seen population increases since the official 2020 Census (Morgantown and Martinsburg are the only two among the cities with 10,000 ...