News
Redistricting in West Virginia
The United States Constitution, the West Virginia Constitution, as well as the United States Supreme Court, all uphold that Congressional, Senatorial and Delegate districts must be as equal as possible in terms of population. This requirement is often referred to as the "one-person, one-vote" principle. Therefore, after the completion of each decennial census, district lines often must be redrawn to account for population changes.
In West Virginia, as in most states, the Legislative Branch has the primary responsibility of creating a redistricting plan, subject to the Governor's approval. In order to achieve the goal of equal representation, both the West Virginia Senate and House of Delegates appoint members to respective Redistricting Committees to study the population shifts, as well as to consider issues such as the contiguity of districts, urban versus rural communities, geography and the like.
According to the final tally of the 2010 Census, West Virginia has a populace of 1,852,994, an increase of close to 45,000 people since 2000. The numbers show that the population in the Eastern Panhandle (with a significant influx of citizens formerly residing in the D.C. area) and North-Central West Virginia (home to West Virginia University) are climbing while the Northern Panhandle and Southern Coalfields continue to lose residents. Each State Senator should represent roughly 109,000 residents with 18,500 for each Delegate. At this stage, because of the shifts in population, very few districts fit into these parameters. Consequently a great deal of redrawing could be required.
Senate President Jeff Kessler has already appointed Senators to a Redistricting Committee. The committee will be chaired by Senator John Unger (D-Berkeley) and vice-chaired by Senator Clark Barnes (R-Randolph). The remainder of the committee members are as follows: Ron Stollings (D Boone), Donna Boley (R-Pleasants), Richard Browning (D Wyoming), Larry Edgell (D Wetzel), Doug Facemire (D Braxton), John Pat Fanning (D McDowell), Dan Foster (D Kanawha), Mike Hall (R-Putnam), Orphy Klempa (D Ohio), William Laird (D Fayette), Ronald Miller (D Greenbrier), Corey Palumbo (D Kanawha), Robert Plymale (D Wayne), Roman Prezioso (D Marion) and Bob Williams (D Taylor). With seventeen Senators assigned to the Redistricting Committee, half of West Virginia's thirty-four Senators are involved. Speaker of the House Rick Thompson has said that he will assign members to a Redistricting Committee soon.
Please continue to check our website periodically, as we will post the members of the House committee as soon as they become available. We will also keep you informed of any public hearings being held throughout the state and post the link to the website designed to make the redistricting process transparent for all West Virginians.
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Officials say state seeing pre-recession tax growth
By Lawrence Messina, Associated Press
CHARLESTON West Virginia officials are confident the budget year will end with a surplus and believe general tax revenues offer crucial evidence that the state has nearly climbed out of the recession.
Each month since this budget year began July 1, the state has brought in more general revenue than at the same point during any prior year. That's critical because the state had been in a two-year slide as the Great Recession took hold. Until this year, the 2007-2008 budget year had been the historical high-water mark for general tax revenues.
March ended with $2.9 billion collected to date, nearly 11 percent more than the state thought it would have by then. Besides being 11.2 percent higher than last year's revenues at this point, it's also 2.6 percent higher than March 2008, noted Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow.
"It's a little bit of an increase, but it took three years to get there," Muchow said. "That's why you may have other states that are seeing increases, but there's still some sense of pain out there."
The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government found as much in its most recent analysis of state tax revenue. Looking at what states collected during the third quarter of 2010, the New York University-based think tank reported that revenues were up 4.5 percent when compared with the same July-through-September period in 2009. But revenues beat 2008 levels in only 10 states, the report said.
States also continue to struggle with the ever-tricky task of estimating future tax revenues, according to a March study by the Rockefeller Institute and the Pew Center on the States. During a 23-year period ending in 2009, states erred in projecting revenues by a median of 3.5 percent. In seven of those years, states tended to overestimate revenues and invited deficit threats. But they proved too conservative during the remaining 16 years and ended up with surpluses.
West Virginia received credit in the study for revising forecasts more frequently during the recession. It also noted that the state's tax officials recently unified and overhauled its computer systems, winning an award last year from the Federation of Tax Administrators as a result. The new system "is seen as a major step toward producing improved revenue estimate," the study said, and "suggests technology upgrades could help some states work toward more accurate estimate."
West Virginia began April with a $276 million surplus. The next two months will likely whittle that down: the general revenue budget has already received the year's allotment of lottery proceeds. Because those transfers occurred earlier than scheduled, the budget has already received the $30 million estimated for this month, and the $32.9 million forecast for May. Those two months must see other revenue sources do much better than expected to offset the resulting shortfalls, which total $62.9 million.
"We feel we're going to end the year with a surplus," Muchow said. "It's just a matter of how much."
That's mainly because key revenue sources, which also reflect economic activity, have fueled the bulk of the forecast-beating collections. Year-to-date revenues that exceeded estimates include corporate net income and business franchise taxes, by $79.5 million; personal income taxes, by nearly $55 million; severance taxes on the extraction of coal and other natural resources, by $39.7 million; and sales and use taxes, by $25.6 million.
That's a marked improvement from last year, when the Rockefeller Institute ranked West Virginia among the weakest states for economic activity. The state's unemployment rate also peaked in December, to 9.7 percent when adjusted for seasonal hiring trends and other factors. That rate was its worst rate since November 1993.
The seasonal rate improved somewhat by February, to 9.4 percent, but remained half a percentage-point above the national rate. Until December, West Virginia unemployment had remained below the national level since the Great Recession began. Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., had higher rates than West Virginia in February. The state's figures for March are expected next week.
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Tomblin Lifts Pay Freeze
By Ry Rivard, Daily Mail Capitol Reporter
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's administration last week made it easier for state agencies to give discretionary pay raises.
The policy applies to some 22,000 executive branch employees and lifts limits put in place by the Manchin administration.
It makes state employees eligible for raises of up to 10 percent if they are threatening to leave their state job or join the private sector, if they work in border counties, if they are assigned special projects, or if they make significantly less money than other employees with similar duties and qualifications.
Tomblin Chief of Staff Rob Alsop announced the plan in a memo dated March 29. The directive lifts a freeze on discretionary raises put in place in 2005 by then-Gov. Joe Manchin's Chief of Staff Larry Puccio.
Tomblin is serving as governor by virtue of being the state Senate president. As soon as he took office in mid-November, cabinet secretaries wanted to reverse the Manchin administration's limits.
"When this administration came in, the first question cabinet secretaries wanted to know was, 'Can we give discretionary increases?' " said Joe Smith, a personnel consultant to the Governor's Office who worked on the new policy.
The Tomblin administration keeps the Manchin administration's ban on "merit" raises, which were easily turned into a way to award friends and those with political connections.
In an interview Saturday, Alsop said those merit raises were given out like "candy" and he was not ready to bring them back without a more objective way to evaluate employee performance.
"You can't just give a pay raise to an employee because you want to," Alsop said of the new Tomblin policy.
Tomblin's policy is unrelated to new legislation that gave an across-the-board salary increase to state employees and teachers.
In the Manchin administration, agencies were allowed to give mandatory increases only for promotions, and 15 percent was the most that could be given, Smith said. Raises for changing jobs are known as "mandatory" raises. Anything else is considered "discretionary."
Alsop's memo reinstates discretionary raises allowed before the Manchin administration came in.
"It is your responsibility to manage the public fisc in a responsible manner," Alsop said in the memo, which was addressed to cabinet secretaries.
Smith said the goal is to make sure state employees are paid fairly.
Because the limits put in place by the Manchin administration applied to employees only once they were hired, Smith said people from the outside came in from the private sector, wouldn't take a low salary and so are now making more than longtime employees whose pay was limited.
"There is one primary premise: That is having equal pay for equal work among the state agencies," Smith said.
The new policy applies to the 22,000 or so employees who report to the Governor's Office, including employees at the Department of Health and Human Resources and the Department of Highways. It does not include teachers or staff in the judicial and legislative branch.
The eventual cost to the state is unclear, but Alsop said state agencies were not being given any additional money and they would have to use their existing budgets to pay for whatever raises were given out.
The policy does provide a number of ways for bosses to give raises, according to the memo and interviews with Smith and Alsop.
Among them:
To stay competitive with the private sector or with pay in surrounding states, agencies can give raises of up to 10 percent. This could be helpful to bosses trying to hire or keep employees in the Eastern Panhandle, which borders states that pay higher salaries to their public workers.
"To be competitive with them, we have to have a regional differential," Smith said.Smith said such increases would typically be 3 to 7 percent, not the full 10 percent allowed.
To recruit employees to posts that are hard to fill, agencies can give new hires signing bonuses worth up to a month's pay.
To keep employees who are leaving because of low pay, the state can offer up to a 10 percent raise, according to the memo. The employee has to document they are planning to leave.
Likewise, the state may counter an offer an employee received from the private sector. To do that, bosses may give a one-time raise of up to 10 percent to an employee who can prove they have a job offer from the private sector, according to the memo.
"If they left, they were basically wished well, but now we have a tool where we can attract and entice them to stay," Smith said.
Bosses can also give up to 10 percent raises to employees who are assigned a "long-term project outside the scope of the essential functions of the employee's position," according to the memo.
Smith said once the special project is over, an employee would go back to his or her previous salary.
"Those additional duties would not permanently increase their base pay," he said.
The memo also gives agencies the authority to correct internal pay disparities. In situations in which one or more workers are paid at least 20 percent less than other employees in their unit that have similar qualifications, the agency may give up to a 10 percent raise to those lower paid workers.
Some of the raises can be used in combination with one another over the course of a year, Smith confirmed.
For instance, the memo authorizes agencies to give raises of up to 10 percent to an employee who "acquires certain formal training/education, certification or licensure."
An employee might take advantage of that and get a 10 percent raise in the early part of the year. Then, the employee could go out into the private sector, get a job offer and come back and ask for another 10 percent raise.
To understand the changes, it may be helpful to understand how state employees are paid.
There are more than 1,000 job classifications in state government. They have very matter-of-fact names, like "Social Worker 1," "Social Worker 2," "Social Worker 3" and so on. As the number increases, the qualifications and experience level required to hold the job increases, but so does the pay and the number of responsibilities.
For instance, a Social Worker 1 has to have a bachelor's degree, but a Social Worker 3 has to have a bachelor's degree and at least two years of job experience.
Each classification is given a one-size-fits-all salary range. The gap between the entry-level salary and the maximum salary can be huge.
For instance, a Social Worker 1 makes between $23,724 and $43,896 a year, a difference of 85 percent between the bottom salary and the top salary for the same job. Most of the raises allowed by Alsop's memo are "in-range," meaning an employee cannot make any more than the maximum salary for his or her classification.
Smith said it was unheard of for someone starting in a job to make the maximum amount. A survey he did in 2005 found some 4,000 state employees were near the bottom of their salary ranges even though they'd been with the state for 10 years or more.
Alsop's memo keeps in place a key part of Puccio's memo: All raises have to be approved by the Governor's Office.
"While I trust that these policies will be followed in such a way that they are applied uniformly within an agency, I request that you seek the approval of the Office of the Governor for any discretionary pay raises above that which is mandatory so that we may provide guidance to ensure that each agency's practice is externally fair among the various agencies," Alsop said in the memo.
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W.Va. Senate Forms Redistricting Task Force
The State Journal
The task force will be chaired by Senate Majority Leader John Unger, D-Berkeley, according to a news release from Kessler's office.
The U.S. Census Bureau released West Virginia's population statistics earlier this month. The news release added that the figures showed a dramatic shift in population from the south to the north over the past 10 years.
"The bi-partisan, geographically diverse task force will be holding meetings around the State gathering information to determine what did or didn't work well during the last redistricting cycle," Kessler said in the news release. "The task force will also make recommendations to the Senate.
The task force consists of 17 members representing each of the state's senatorial districts.
"It is an honor to chair this very important group," Unger said in the news release. "As chairman, I intend to make the redistricting process transparent and include the citizens of every region in redrawing the State's district boundaries."
Other members of the Redistricting Task Force are:
Ron Stollings, D - Boone
Clark Barnes (vice chairman), R-Randolph
Donna Boley, R-Pleasants
Richard Browning, D - Wyoming
Larry Edgell,D -Wetzel
Doug Facemire, D - Braxton
John Pat Fanning, D - McDowell
Dan Foster, D - Kanawha
Mike Hall, R-Putnam
Orphy Klempa, D - Ohio
William Laird, D - Fayette
Ronald Miller, D - Greenbrier
Corey Palumbo, D - Kanawha
Robert Plymale, D - Wayne
Roman Prezioso, D - Marion
Bob Williams, D - Taylor
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Tomblin Signs Autism Insurance Measuer
By The Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- For Julia Dunlap, her 5-year-old son finally has a future with Friday's signing of legislation requiring health insurers to cover therapy considered crucial for children with autism.
The 26-year-old Lincoln County woman said it will help her obtain the applied behavioral analysis he needs through her family's policy. Unable to afford this therapy out-of-pocket, she said what treatment her son Gavin McCoy has received has been because of his grandparents' support.
"This is so amazing. This will take such a financial burden off of them," Dunlap said "For Gavin, he just wouldn't receive a future. It just wouldn't happen."
Dunlap and her son were among some three dozen families who joined Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, who is acting as governor, for the signing ceremony at his Capitol reception room. Passed during the recently completed regular session, the legislation requires both public and private insurers to cover autism spectrum disorders.
But while it becomes law July 1, insurers don't have to heed it until 2012. It also caps benefits and exempts small employers, reflecting compromise language sought by industry.
"This has been a long, hard journey for our families," Tomblin said. "This will allow families to get the important therapy they need to help child connect and communicate with others."
The autism spectrum covers an array of neurological disorders marked by problems with communication, behavior and social skills. Tomblin called it the third most common developmental disability in the United States. The National Institute of Mental Health considers it more prevalent among children than diabetes, spina bifida or Down syndrome.
The range of conditions includes a severe form called autistic disorder and the much milder Asperger's syndrome. Supporters say early diagnosis and intervention through such evidence-based therapies as ABA can make critical differences.
Dominic Rodighiero can attest to that. The 18-year-old graduated from high school 21st in his class, has a job and can consider college an option after years of ABA therapy.
"Quite frankly, living with autism hasn't been easy for me," Rodighiero said after the signing ceremony. "At first I couldn't hear, I couldn't listen. I could barely talk. I could barely move my fingers. I couldn't do anything."
Rodighiero also credits support from his family. His father, Delegate Ralph Rodighiero, D-Logan, was among the measure's lead supporters.
"This bill will hopefully help families affected with autism help their kids have a brighter, more successful future," the son said.
The Rodighieros attended Friday's signing along with other lawmakers who had championed the legislation. They included fellow Delegates Mike Hunt and Doug Skaff of Kanawha County, Josh Stowers of Lincoln County, and Barbara Fleischauer of Monongalia County, as well as Sen. Evan Jenkins of Cabell County. All are Democrats. The bipartisan bill passed unanimously in the Senate, and nearly so in the House.
Tomblin noted that supporters have sought the insurance measure for five years, and their success this year makes West Virginia the 25th state to require this coverage. Several other states are considering legislation this year, according to Tomblin and the national advocacy and support group Autism Speaks.
The insurance industry helped shape this year's bill after warning that the resulting costs from such mandates increase premiums by between 1 and 3 percent. As with at least 17 other states, West Virginia's law caps benefits. It allows coverage to begin at 18 months, and sets limits of $30,000 annually for the first three years, and then at $2,000 per month until age 18.
It applies to plans issued or renewed as of Jan. 1, while exempting policies for employers with no more than 25 workers. For the Public Employees Insurance Agency, coverage will begin July 1, 2012.
Tomblin issued a proclamation as part of the bill signing declaring Saturday as Autism Awareness Day and April as Autism Awareness Month. He also credited groups at West Virginia and Marshall universities for supporting the legislation, and noted that those schools provide coursework for those who can provide ABA therapy.
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Approval of the Exchange
WV Metro News
West Virginia is the fourth state to pass legislation setting up a health insurance exchange. The state legislature completed action on the health care reform bill last week.
State Insurance Commissioner Jane Cline says the approved bill will enable her office to set up the framework that will one day be a marketplace for health insurance for those who don't have it.
States are required to establish exchanges by 2013 or the federal government will do it for them. Cline says that's one big important reason to get the bill passed this year. She says passing the bill early also allows the state to apply for federal grants that will help with the establishment of the program.
"If they (federal govt.) were doing that they would be setting the fees and making the determination where those fees would be assessed and things of that nature," Cline said.
Some lawmakers urged the rejection of the bill because they believe the federal health care reform law will be repealed. Cline says the bill deals with that.
"We would then come back to the legislature with different recommendations perhaps, not following what the federal model and guidelines were going to be," she said.
The rules of the exchange, once they are established, will first have to be approved by state lawmakers.
Those using the exchange will be able to get help to maneuver in the exchange and choose the best health insurance package for them. There will also be federal subsidies available in some cases.
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Study Flunks W.Va. for Online Government Transparency
The Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A watchdog group has given West Virginia a failing grade for the transparency of its state government spending.
In a new report, the nonpartisan U.S. Public Interest Research Group flunks 10 states including West Virginia for the online disclosure of who receives state money and for what purposes.
The group champions what it calls a "new standard of comprehensive, one-stop, one-click budget accountability and accessibility," rating states through a 100-point grading system for the level of online depth and disclosure they provide.
"Transparency in government spending checks corruption, bolsters public confidence, and promotes fiscal responsibility," says the report, released Wednesday. "Opening the government's checkbook empowers citizens to involve themselves in budgetary debates and to act as watchdogs to ensure that the government spends money fairly and efficiently."
The report comes as West Virginia lawmakers remain in extended session this week, to complete a new spending plan for the budget year that starts July 1.
West Virginia lost the most points for lacking a website that provides "checkbook-level" detail of spending. The study credits 40 states for offering that level of information through a specific online portal.
Neighboring Kentucky earned an "A'' in the study. The four other surrounding states received grades in the "B" and "C" range. Of the 10 states that flunked, six ended up with lower scores than West Virginia. Maine fared the worst, as it provides online access only to its vendors.
The group looked at the website for West Virginia's purchasing division, part of the Department of Administration. It did not consider VISTA, the online database of vendor payments and public compensation operated by state Auditor Glen Gainer. His office recently upgraded VISTA, allowing searches by agency and by vendor, among other changes.
West Virginia also received no credit for offering online tax expenditure data, though it does post annual tallies of that information through the website for the state tax commissioner. But those reports aren't easy to find, and neither they nor VISTA are linked from the Purchasing Division site.
The watchdog group's co-author, Jeff Musto, said it seeks to promote a central, user-friendly website that anyone can navigate.
"The idea is that instead of forcing a citizen to go to a range of different websites to get a variety of information [and know exactly where to go for each piece of information that they desire], they can simply go to one website," Musto said in an e-mail Wednesday.
Justin Southern, a spokesman for Gainer, said West Virginia is developing what may become the sort of portal endorsed by the group. The state has spent the last several years on its proposed Enterprise Resource Planning System, which aims to unify the array of databases kept by government agencies to track finances, personnel and purchasing. Legislation passed during the recently completed regular session would create an oversight board, steering committee and a special fund for the project.
Republican delegates have repeatedly proposed the sort of transparency championed by the group, House Minority Leader Tim Armstead noted Wednesday.
"We'd like to see a website that has very detailed information about state spending," said Armstead, R-Kanawha. "This would allow West Virginians to be much more aware of how their tax dollars are spent."
Armstead said that proposal dovetails with GOP calls to remove or reduce unclassified spending lines from the state budget.
"The budget that we have has all of these unclassified line items where we're giving over to agencies a great deal of our budget to spend as they choose," Armstead said. "There is no transparency in that process, either."
Citing the recent VISTA upgrades, acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, a Democrat, said he's asked his staff to review the group's report. The nonpartisan group applauds 14 states that have created or improved their online transparency portals since its last report in 2010, which West Virginia also flunked.
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Tomblin Seeks $2 Million for Marcellus Inspectors
By Phil Kabler
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, acting as governor, Wednesday asked the Legislature to add $2 million to the Department of Environmental Protection's budget to enhance the department's ability to inspect gas well sites, in light of the failure to pass legislation to regulate Marcellus Shale drilling this session.
Tomblin reiterated Wednesday that differences between House and Senate versions of the bill are too broad to attempt to resolve them in an immediate special session.
"Because of the divide that exists, I do not believe a special session is warranted at this time," Tomblin said during an afternoon news conference.
Environmental and citizens groups have called for a special session on Marcellus drilling.
In the short term, Tomblin said he believes the DEP can effectively regulate the burgeoning Marcellus Shale industry with the new inspectors and with new in-house regulations.
DEP Secretary Randy Huffman said the additional funds, which will need to be added to the 2011-12 budget bill, would allow the department to hire eight or nine additional inspectors, who would be assigned to parts of the state where Marcellus Shale drilling is most active.
"We believe that is something that is necessary, and would be done immediately," he said.
Huffman said the DEP has some authority to enact emergency rules on regulation of Marcellus Shale drilling, within a limited scope of issues, such as matters involving water management.
Agencies that have rulemaking authority can immediately enforce emergency rules, while all other rule changes must be approved by the Legislature, though its Rulemaking Review process, before they go into effect.
Tomblin asked legislators to take the additional $2 million for DEP out of the overall $4 billion 2011-12 general revenue budget, but did not specify what accounts should have funding reduced to raise that amount.
House-Senate budget conferees met briefly in public Wednesday afternoon, but did not take up the DEP budget.
It was the second meeting of the committee during the extended session, which began Sunday. At the current pace, the full Legislature is not likely to vote on passage of the budget bill until Saturday or Sunday.
Also Wednesday, Tomblin reiterated that he does not intend to call a special session following passage of the budget bill to act on a funding plan to pay down an $8 billion unfunded liability for future health care benefits for retired state and public school employees, known as the OPEB liability.
However, he said resolution of the liability could be close to reality.
"We may have something that will work in the near future out there," said Tomblin, who opposed the House's proposal to use $250 million of state Rainy Day emergency reserve funds to start to pay down the long-term debt.
However, Tomblin said he does expect legislators to take up veto messages during the weeklong extended session for the budget bill, to make corrections to bills that had to be vetoed for technical errors.
As of Wednesday, the governor's office had identified two bills that will need to be vetoed because of errors: A bill to toughen the state Ethics Act (HB2464), and a bill to require at least one member of the Public Service Commission attend any public hearings on rate increases (HB2663).
Both bills passed Saturday, after being in House-Senate conference committees. Omissions reportedly occurred in transferring the conferees' reports into bill form.
Tomblin said that, as of Wednesday afternoon, he has not seen any bills he intends to veto for substantive issues. However, he noted that a number of bills passed in the waning hours of the session have yet to reach the governor's office.
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Acting Governor Likely To Veto Bills For Technical Reasons
WV Metro News
Acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin says state lawmakers may have time this week to fix technical problems in the bills he's vetoed up to this point.
"If we can find any technical mistakes, we'll send those back up to the Legislature to address while they're in town this week," the Acting Governor said.
As of early Wednesday afternoon, he had vetoed the legislation the deals with additions to the state Ethics Law and the measure that requires one member of the state Public Service Commission to attend every PSC public hearing.
He says the problems found in those bills could be fixed this week.
Work on the state budget continues as part of the Extended Session that runs through the week at the State Capitol.
On Wednesday, Acting Governor Tomblin asked the budget conferees to include $2 million in the budget so the state Department of Environmental Protection can hire eight to ten additional inspectors to help monitor gas drilling in the Marcellus shale throughout the state.
"It's my hope that, during this week of budgetary reviews, that the Legislature will approve this request. This emerging industry holds much promise for our citizens," Tomblin said.
However, at this point, the Acting Governor says there is too much disagreement to call a Special Session so lawmakers can have more time to look at the bill that would set up a regulatory framework for that drilling.
It did not make it out of the Legislature before the end of the Regular Legislative Session last Saturday.
Another bill that failed to get needed approvals this year was the legislation designed to help the state deal with the $8 billion dollars owed for health care benefits for future state retirees, what are called Other Post Employment Benefits or OPEB.
Acting Governor Tomblin says work is continuing on that legislation and there could be some agreement soon.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Tomblin offered no clues about whether he plans to veto any bills for non-technical reasons.
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West Virginia Gives Send Off to WWI Vet
WV Metro News
West Virginia has now paid its own tribute to Frank Woodruff Buckles.
America’s last-living World War I veteran, who died in February, was buried Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery.
Around 225 people then paid tribute to Buckles during a Wednesday vigil at Charles Town Zion Episcopal Church.
Friends and family stood up and told stories about Buckles’ will to live through war and other tough times.
Family friend David DeJonge says the service gave him a stark message not to stop fighting for a D.C. World War I Memorial.
"I don't give up, and like we heard in the service here, Mr. Buckles never gave up," DeJonge said. "That rubbed off on me, and I've always been inspired by the never, never, never give up. And this was an adrenaline shot to really bring that up."
DeJonge says he also still plans to finish his documentary about Buckles’ life.
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W.Va. Unemployment Rate Holds Steady
By The Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia's unemployment rate remained unchanged in February at 10.3 percent.
Figures released Tuesday by Workforce West Virginia show employment gains in the service sector such as leisure and hospitality, but losses in goods producing, including logging and mining.
A seasonal gain of 1,700 jobs in government was also reported.
Overall, unemployment in West Virginia topped 80,000 last month.
West Virginia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate declined two-tenths of a percentage point to 9.4 percent. The national rate dropped by one-tenth of a percentage point to 8.9 percent.