By Gary Lee Stuber
The Clay County Commission met for the second meeting of the month of Oct. 27. Commissioners Joyce Johnson and Duane Legg were physically present, and Commissioner David Schoolcraft was present by phone.
As usual the bulk of the meeting was to take care of routine county business. They approved the Clay/Roane PSD minutes and final report for August, minutes from the previous commission meeting, bills, purchase orders, budget revisions, erroneous assessments as presented by the Assessor, and fiduciary appointments as presented County Clerk Shelia Stone.
The commission made appointments to the Clay County Historical Landmarks Commission. They appointed Jerry Stover as President, Jeanine Douglas as Treasurer, Jim Miller as Vice President, and Janette Douglas as Recording Secretary. Additionally, the commission approved the Expression of Interest for the Historic Clay County Courthouse. Commissioner Duane Legg explained that this is an advertisement being published requesting architectural and engineering studies for the old courthouse. These must be done to proceed with the restoration of the old courthouse.
Commission Legg requested a moment of silence for the recently deceased Joyce Gibson who was a long time County Clerk for Clay County. The moment of silence was observed by all those in attendance. She was 96 years old. Her funeral was held Nov. 2.
Before adjourning, two county employees requested a plea to the County Commission. Assessor Theresa Davis opened with saying, “I don’t know where to start,” talking about PEIA (the Public Employee Insurance Association) which is the insurance that funds all WV state employees, including in Clay County. “In 2024 we had a 14% increase and in 2025 we had a 16% increase,” she said, “I looked it up this morning and we have had a 40% increase in deductibles.”
She went on to elucidate a sad personal struggle of medical bills, and impossible deductible still pending. “Most county employees were changed from Plan A to Plan B because of the big increase in premiums. But my deductible this year alone is $4,500.” She observed while costs in both premiums and deductibles have gone up severely, wages in the county have not. She was not alone in this observation. She asked the commission to do something about this financial “craziness.”
Stacey King also piped up that PEIA was approaching the status of being unreasonable. Joyce Johnson asked if the county had other options. Duane Legg said that the problem they are facing is that if they leave PEIA for any other insurance plan, if in the future, it becomes reasonable again – the county can never go back to PEIA. Duane also observed that to change plans within PEIA they needed to wait until the current contract ends next April. The commission agreed to look into options both now and when the plan expired in April. One easy option to counter this would be to increase pay to county employees. But because of the out-of-control jail bill in this county (and many other WV counties), county employees cannot get a pay increase. Commissioner Legg said he was told that the PEIA increase next year was 7% or less, so it won’t be as severe an increase as it was last year. They pledged to look further into this.
The county’s next regular meeting will be Monday, Nov. 10.
