West Virginia is so far behind in developing assets - both in technology and workforce - for information technology based "knowledge-sector" jobs that there's no easy solution to help the state catch up, the president and CEO of the West Virginia High Technology Foundation told legislators Sunday.
"Our state has fallen so far behind in the accumulation of the needed assets to participate, it's hard to think of competing," Jeff Estep told the interim Joint Commission on Economic Development.
Estep said West Virginia is caught in a "chicken or the egg" dilemma: High tech knowledge sector businesses seek locations where highly educated workforces are readily available, but the state can't retain those well-educated workers when the knowledge sector jobs are unavailable here.
He said West Virginia has the lowest educational achievement rates, lowest adult workforce participation rates, and the highest percentage of residents receiving disability benefits in the country.
"These are the loudest of alarm bells and reddest of red flags," he said, calling it a workforce crisis.
"West Virginia is hemorrhaging its youngest residents at an alarming rate," Estep said.
He said state government does not have the resources to make the necessary upgrades in infrastructure such as broadband Internet.
"Can the Legislature set aside a half a billion dollars to make the necessary investments to have a tangible impact?" he asked. "West Virginia is certainly between a rock and a hard place when it comes to financial resources."
Estep suggested the state may want to follow the "federal anchor model" that has proved successful in the Interstate 79 corridor in north-central West Virginia.
Major federal facilities such as the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division in Clarksburg, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration supercomputing center in the I-79 Technology Park in Fairmont have attracted more than $1 billion of private-sector contracts, creating knowledge sector employment along the corridor.
Attracting additional federal high-tech facilities might be the only workable model for the state to create a viable knowledge sector employment base, he said.
Also during legislative interim meetings Sunday:
| An ongoing legislative audit of the Division of Highways is being hampered by the division's failure to provide requested data in a timely fashion, legislative Post Audits manager Kenneth Jones told legislators.
During the 2015 session, the Legislature passed a bill authorizing spending up to $500,000 to outline any inefficiencies or wasteful spending in the agency.
Jones said the division has not been forthcoming in providing records for overtime, purchasing, travel, and other expenses, for an audit that is to be completed by the end of this year.
Keith Chapman, business manager for the division, said Highways officials are working to comply the requested data.
"We're making it a priority to get these documents compiled and sent over to the Legislative Auditor's office," he told members of the Legislative Post-Audits Committee.
| A legislative audit concluded that the Office of Chief Medical Examiner gave preferential treatment for more than a decade to one state mortuary service for transportation of bodies for autopsy.
Between 2003 and 2014, Tri-State Mortuary Service was assigned the majority of all body transports, with payments totaling more than $1.8 million, the audit found.
The audit cited a hand-written contract between Tri-State owner Chad Harding and a former OCME operations director to provide body transportation services through 2018. It notes that body transportation services are exempt from state Purchasing Division regulations, and not subject to bidding or state purchasing rules.
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.