For the umpteenth time, the West Virginia Legislature adjourned a session without authorizing “locality pay.”

West Virginia, unlike most states, has no provision for differences in pay for teachers, troopers and other state or school workers based on differences in regional cost-of-living. The lion’s share of salary for school employees comes from state funds.

Locality (also called “regional”) pay means including local costs-of-living, when setting salaries for public school employees and state workers. About 30 years ago, when I was in the House of Delegates, then-State Senator John Unger and I proposed locality pay. Housing costs (the primary driver of cost-of-living differences) in the eastern three counties had become abnormally higher than those in the rest of the state.

This disparity was making it much more difficult to retain teachers and other public workers in these parts. The problem was compounded by the much higher salaries such workers could enjoy, if they went to work in nearby Maryland or Virginia.

From the start, legislators from the rest of the state opposed the idea of locality pay, calling it a “special favor for the Eastern Panhandle.” Many of those legislators didn’t realize the extent of the problem. Some realized it, but thought we in the Eastern Panhandle should fix it with our own money. Ha! Jefferson County, with a hundred percent excess levy, was spending (still is) every local penny on public education that the state constitution allows.

The problem isn’t lack of a solution, but the lack of political will from most legislators from outside the Eastern Panhandle — all eight counties of which are among the top 15 of the state’s 55 counties with the highest housing costs.

About 20 years ago, I suggested we set aside a separate fund for “housing costs,” which would be paid to school and state employees who live and work in counties where housing costs are higher than the statewide average. This would be in addition to the employees’ salaries. There are other workable solutions.

The situation is now more abysmal than it was 30 years ago. I think our delegation needs to commit to bargaining extremely hard for locality pay. We tried to bargain when I was in the Legislature. But the three easternmost counties (where things are particularly dire) lacked sufficient representation in the Legislature to bargain successfully. Due to our growth, we now have over ten percent of representation. I think we have the critical mass to effectively bargain.

Politically, I think no version of locality pay can succeed unless it’s part of a large statewide salary increase for state and school workers. Included in the package must be extra help for the half dozen counties in which housing is for the most part so decrepit that no one who doesn’t already live there wants to move there. The average home price in each of these counties is less than $100,000. By comparison, the average home price here in Jefferson County is over $340,000; Berkeley County ($290,000) is second; Monongalia County, home to Morgantown, is third ($268,000); and Morgan County is fourth ($238,000).

John Doyle is a 26-year former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates. He can be reached at rjohndoyle@comcast.net.