2009 Legislative Accomplishments

EDUCATION:
- Ensuring students get help with critical skills if needed when they reach 3rd & 8th grades – SB 1001
- Allowing schools to apply to become Innovation Zones where new academic policies can be developed locally and tested – HB 109
- Modernizing teacher hiring policies to attract more new teachers – SB 1006
- Increasing PROMISE scholarship funding to allow more students to receive scholarships protecting the program's long term viability - SB 373
- Allowing veterans to attend WV colleges at in-state tuition rates - HB 2335
 
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT & ENERGY:
- Creating tax incentives to attract high tech data centers – SB 1003
- Increasing the use of alternative & renewable energy to 25% of all output by 2025 – HB 103
- Securing unemployment compensation fund: maintain its solvency at minimal cost – SB 246
- Reporting of industrial accidents to authorities & the public in a timely manner -    SB 279
- Establishing carbon sequestration rules: promotes pilot projects - HB 2860
- Establishing new procedures to ensure better post-mine land use planning to help create jobs – SB 1011
- Updating the state building code promoting energy efficiency - HB 2976

HEALTH CARE:
- Raising salaries for mental health care workers at state hospitals – SB 1002
- Creating tax breaks to help parents who care for autistic children – SB 1009
- Increasing coordination of state's health care programs - SB414

RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT:
- Fixing state pension loophole to help prevent double-dipping - SB 244
- Expanding early voting to allow counties to create additional early voting locations -  HB 2464
- Extending the deadline for teachers to convert back to the old retirement system, helping to ensure the system's solvency - HB 2870
- Helping cities better manage their pensions, saving cities money at no cost to state taxpayers – SB 4007
- New voting methods for military and overseas citizens to make it easier for them vote – HB 406
- WV was one of very few states to end the fiscal year with a surplus – most states have had to make drastic cuts or raise taxes