H. B. 2332


(By Delegates Stemple, Paxton,

Louisos and Canterbury)

[Introduced January 16, 2003 ; referred to the

Committee on Education.]




A BILL to amend article fourteen, chapter eighteen-bBill Title of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section eleven, relating to directing higher education policy Title Language commission to conduct certain studies and report findings and recommendations to certain legislative committees at certain dates.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article fourteen, chapter eighteen-bEnacting Section of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section eleven, to read as follows:
ARTICLE 14. MISCELLANEOUS.
§18B-14-11. Directing higher education policy commission to conduct studies; report during January, 2004, legislative interims.

(a) The higher education policy commission is hereby directed to study and report its findings and recommendations to the joint committee on government and finance, the legislative oversight commission on education accountability and the joint standing committees on finance and education during the January, two thousand four, legislative interims on the following matters:
(1) The capacity for delivering post-secondary education services in the state, including public and private institutions, at the various levels including post-secondary certificate and skill development services for business and industry, two-year technical and two-year transfer degrees, baccalaureate degrees, Master's degrees, and Doctoral and professional degrees;
(2) A comparison of the capacity for delivering post-secondary education services relative to the demand for such services in the various levels projected over the next five years and the next ten years; and
(3) An analysis of measures to align capacity with projected demand, including recommendations for specific institutions where appropriate, including, but not limited to:
(i) The consolidation, merger, closure or transition to community college status of certain institutions;
(ii) The elimination of unnecessary duplication;
(iii) The refinement and restriction of institutional missions;
(iv) The role of private institutions in meeting the needs of state students and the state for post-secondary education services, and the appropriate recognition of this role in the higher education policies of the state;
(v) The economics of the joint use of public education technical and adult facilities and post-secondary community and technical colleges; and
(vi) The uniform and unconditional transferability of student course credits among state institutions of higher education.
(b) The higher education policy commission is hereby directed to review its current policies for attaining peer equity among the state institutions of higher education and to report its findings with respect to the progress being made toward this goal and any recommendations to the joint committee on government and finance, the legislative oversight commission on education accountability and the joint standing committees on finance and education during the January, two thousand four, legislative interims.
(c) The higher education policy commission is hereby directed to study and report its findings and recommendations to the joint committee on government and finance, the legislative oversight commission on education accountability and the joint standing committees on finance and education during the January, two thousand four, legislative interims on standardized methods and criteria for determining salary levels for personnel employed in the offices of the policy commission and the state institutions of higher education in chief administrative, advisory, directorate, and other policy and chief of operations level positions and their deputies and executive assistants who are exempt from established salary schedules for faculty and classified staff. The report shall include the current salary levels for the various categories of positions and the rationale and criteria utilized in establishing the current salary levels.
(d) The higher education policy commission shall make status reports on the studies provided for in this section to the legislative oversight commission on education accountability at its request.

NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to direct the Higher Education Policy Commission to conduct certain studies and report findings and recommendations to certain legislative committees at the January 2004 Legislative Interims.

This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.