Talkline | Nov. 17, 2025

Jared Halpern, Fox News, talks about the president's reversal on the Epstein Files. New US Attorney for the Southern District Moore Capito joins the show. Tiffany Hoben with Cardinal Institute discusses the school aid formula and Joe Brocato recaps a busy weekend in sports. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Well, if you can't beat them, release the files anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Toad of sports to get too from Over the weekend,
let's mention news talk Line.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
We are underway radio turned.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Off from the studios of w v r C Media
and the Metro News Radio and Television Network.

Speaker 5 (00:41):
The Voice up West Virginia.

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Comes the most powerful show in West Virginia. This It's
Metro News talk Line with Dave Wilson and t J Meadows.

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Activated switch that work control from.

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Charles stand by you, David TJ.

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You're on.

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Speaker 1 (01:13):
Good morning, Welcome into the program Monday morning.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
David TJ. David Morgantown. Dave Wilson in Morgantown, the in
COVID Insurance studios.

Speaker 7 (01:22):
TJ.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Meadows is in Charleston.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Our phone number is eight hundred and seven sixty five
Talk eight hundred and seven sixty five eight two five five.
You can text the show three four Talk three oh four.
Jake Link is our video producer this morning, and Sophia
Wasik is handling the audio side of things coming up
bottom of the hour. We'll talk to more Capito, the
new US Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.

(01:47):
Later on we'll get into the school aid formula. The
Cardinal Institute thinks it as an idea on how to
improve the school aid formula, and Joe Bricotta will stop by.
Busy sports weekend started Friday, continued right through yesterday. We'll
check in with Joe. Scheduled to join us in studio
this morning once again. Phone numbers eight hundred and seven

(02:08):
to sixty five Talk eight hundred seven sixty five, eight
two five, five and three four talk three oh four.
Please welcome to the program, mister TJ. Meadows, Morning, sir.

Speaker 5 (02:18):
Good morning. Now, you know that for some time President
Trump has been saying release the files. This is nothing new, Dave.
As I was told last night on Facebook from a
bunch of Trump apologists, he's been advocating for this all along.
This is nothing new.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Well, it sure seemed new to me. I missed it, hyperbolically.
I missed some things, TJ. We're very busy people, got
a lot of sports going on. This one well caught
me by surprise. President Trump last night on his Truth
Social after months of opposing the release of the Epstein files,
put on Truth Social House Republicans should vote to release

(02:57):
the Epstein files because we have nothing hide. All right,
let's go to Washington, DC, White House. Fox News Radios.
Jared Halpern joins US this morning, Jared, Good morning. Gotta say,
didn't see this one coming, did you?

Speaker 8 (03:13):
No?

Speaker 9 (03:13):
I mean, this was a major reversal. And for what
it's worth, if he wants the files released, it could
ask Pamboni to do it without any sort of vote
in Congress at all. The reason that the House of
Representatives is taking this vote is because of the opposition
that has been bent forward by the Justice Department and
by President Trump. Recalled back in July, the Justice Department said,
we've reviewed everything. It is not appropriate to release anything else.

(03:38):
It is a closed case, and there was some pushback.
You've seen this discharge petition on Capitol Hill for Republicans,
joined by every House Democrat, that now forces this vote
next week. It's expected that Republican support for this resolution
is now growing because that is kind of where the
base is and a lot of the continent tuts that

(04:00):
they represent, and so this is President Trump essentially getting
on the side of where this vote is headed. But again,
it's a vote that was forced because of dissatisfaction from
an awful lot of lawmakers about the position that the
Justice Department, that the Trump administration had taken about the

(04:21):
Epstein files.

Speaker 5 (04:22):
So if it passes in the House, Jared, I assume
it has to, the discharge goes over to the Senate
as part of that. The political calculus here, get on
board in the House and maybe nothing happens in the Senate.
And that's one of the reasons why he was so
eager to come out last night and say what he said.
I'm just curious how all the x's and o's were No.

Speaker 9 (04:37):
I mean, I think it's it's because that's where the
winds are going. I think you're going to see an
overwhelming number of Republicans vote for this. I think they
were planning on doing it anyway, and it would have
been kind of embarrassing for the President had this passed
overwhelmingly over his objection. So now there's no objection to it,
it will go to the Senate. I don't know what
the Senate plan is for it, but you're right, this
is largely symbolic if it's not passed by the Senate,

(05:00):
signed in the law by the President. But again, a
law a resolution is not required for what it is
that these lawmakers are asking the Justice Department to do.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
So Fox News Radio is Jared Halper. I'm going to
ask the dumb question here, Jared, So why not if
the president is on board? I think you guys just
answered the question already. Why not just release them then?
If you have that authority, put it all out. I mean,
there's sixty thousand whatever pages out.

Speaker 9 (05:24):
Department says there's nothing else to release. They've released fifty
thousand pages to the House Oversight Committee, House Overside committees
reviewing them. You've seen some I think you could call
it strategic releases by both Republicans and Democrats on that committee.
But recall back in June July, Pam Bondi said, there's
really like this is it like we can't just like

(05:46):
release things that are about people who have been on
like unindicted and not charged, because there are laws against
that right and that you know, this so called Epstein
book doesn't really exist. There wasn't a client list, and
so the Justice Department has kind of indicated that they

(06:07):
had released everything, and then last week President Trump was like, well, no, no,
I want to see all this information about Democrats, and
Pambini was like, we're on it, so we're investigating it,
which is again counter kind of to what she had
said earlier in the year when she had suggested that
there's no other investigative thread to go down.

Speaker 10 (06:24):
Chire.

Speaker 5 (06:25):
It seems the more we talk about this, the less
we're talking about the fact that our most advanced aircraft
carrier is down in the Caribbean. With what may play
out with Venezuela, there's the tariff issue and affordability. It
seems advantageous to me, not to be cynical, for the
White House to be able to focus on this and
not on other stuff. I mean, is there something there well.

Speaker 9 (06:45):
So the frustration from the White House is that there
has been a lot of focus on this when they
don't want to be talking about it. Last week the
government shut down. It ends it was kind of a
win for Republicans because Democrats essentially acquiesced and I guess
you'd say caved without getting their big demand. At the
same time, these new emails were released from Democrats on

(07:07):
the Oversight Committee. The Republicans said this was partisanship, this
was intended to distract from the government reopening, and so
part of the strategy here, I think on the part
of President Trump saying just release everything is to get
this behind them, that they do want to be talking
about things that I think are much more helpful for
them politically. The President is giving a big speech tonight

(07:31):
about affordability. The President is hosting the Crown Prince of
Saudi Arabia tomorrow again part of his push to get
them to join the Abraham Accords and restore some peace
with this fragile ceasefire in Gaza. So those are the
things that the White House wants to talk about. I
think that there is now an understanding that the longer

(07:51):
that they kind of let these resolutions play out and
have these votes and have these debates and these sort
of trickle trickle trickle leaks, that it does take them
off a message that they'd rather be talking about. So
perhaps this is now just a strategy by the President,
by the White House to say, let's get this out,
let's move beyond it, and let's move forward.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Fox News Radio is Jared Halpern joining us as far
as the affordability issue goes, As you mentioned, the Trump
white House wants to be talking about that. What points
are they trying to raise or or how they how's
the White House trying to address affordability? That very broad
general category there.

Speaker 9 (08:26):
This is a frustration that every White House faces. This
is not unique to the Trump administration. It is what
President Biden was blamed for as well. That you come
across as almost unsympathetic to people who have real concerns
about their cost of living or their bills. Right, you
point to metrics that the economy is growing, inflation is falling,
the employment rate is down. You've seen President Trump talk

(08:50):
about gasoline price is falling. You've seen the President talk
about the inflation rate not as high as it was
certainly at the peak of the Biden years at nine percent.
At the same time, people don't judge the economy on
macro measurements. They don't say, well, you know, the unemployment
rate is better if you do not have a job.

(09:10):
What's the matter with the unemployment rate?

Speaker 5 (09:11):
Is?

Speaker 11 (09:11):
Right?

Speaker 9 (09:11):
If you are paying more for groceries this year than
you were last year, what do you care? How the
rate of growth is gone? Right, and so that's a
challenge for every White House, for every administration. We have
certainly seen the president facing some headwinds and ap norc
Pole last week showed that two thirds of Americans are
not supportive, do not approve of the president's handling of

(09:36):
the economy. And so the president is going to want
to start going out there talking about the policies that
he has, the plan that is in place, the timeline
that it may take, that people are better off now
than they were when he took office. That is going
to be the argument heading into the midterms. But certainly
you saw Democrats use the affordability argument to their benefit,

(09:58):
to their advantage earlier this wee month in those elections
and again Virginia, New Jersey, New York City not exactly
you know, light blue or swingy states, but Democrats did
win by margins that were unexpected and in large part
because they were talking about that affordability issue, which is
by the way, why President Trump won the election last year.

(10:20):
And so you know, you get elected on saying I'm
going to bring down prices, I'm going to bring down
cost A lot of voters are like, let's do it,
let's see it, right, there's not a lot of you know,
runway there that voters and the American people often give politicians.

Speaker 5 (10:34):
No, it's the economy number one issue in the exit polls. Yeah, allway,
economy always, and it's it's funny that we forget that
once we're in office, it seems, and look, Trump's not
that's not just a Trump thing, but it seems like
a lot of administrations are able to forget that key fact,
given that in the affordabilding, you're talking about recap some
of those tariffs that we're already talking about bringing off.

(10:55):
I think I read coffee up forty one year over year.
I mean, that's that's nuts, paying forty one percent more
for a couple of coffee. And to your point, it's
those small real things that Americans tend to care about.
What has come off? What if any other tariffs do
we anticipate maybe in play to come off.

Speaker 9 (11:11):
So this was kind of due to some trade agreements,
or at least framework deals that were made with some
Central and South American countries, and so as a result
of that, the administration says it is now exempting a
host of essentially agriculture products that we can't really grow
in this country bananas, coffee, fruits, some beef, some meat

(11:33):
is not going to be hit with those tariffs as
they try and bring down those prices. And again it's
a sticky situation, I think for the administration because on
the one hand, the President has talked about the benefits
he sees with tariffs, how much revenue they are going
to bring in, and how the economy is going to
be better off and buy and large Americans don't pay
those tariffs. And at the same time, there is a
recognition that at least for some of these commodities, these

(11:56):
groceries that people are complaining about bringing down, they're eliminating
that terif rate will make the price come down at
least a little bit. And you're seeing that now with
kind of those staples that folks buy, those fruits and
vegetables and coffee and cocoa. Things again that we consume
an awful lot of in this country, but because of

(12:17):
climate don't grow an awful lot of in this country.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, banana production not not high.

Speaker 9 (12:23):
I mean, I think I think Hawaii, like Hawaii grows bananas,
but I don't think they grow enough for three hundred
and fifty million Americans.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
No Fox News Radios Jared Halpern Jared also, good luck
tonight Cowboys versus the Raiders tonight.

Speaker 5 (12:38):
Good luck.

Speaker 9 (12:39):
If we don't win the night, it's going to be
a long reasons try that schedule gets real tough after tonight, though,
kind of watching with my eyes half closed because if
it goes badly tonight, it's start time to start thinking
about the draft.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Fox News Radios Jared Halpern always appreciated, Buddy, sure thing
coming up your thoughts three or four talk three soh
for we're just off and rolling. It's Mention News talk
Line on a Monday Back in a moment.

Speaker 8 (13:04):
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Speaker 1 (13:40):
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Speaker 5 (13:42):
It's showtime.

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The holiday hit maker walks the office halls with West
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Speaker 4 (14:17):
Metronews talk Line is presented by Encova Insurance, encircling you
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Speaker 2 (14:27):
Text line is three or four Talk three oh four
phone numbers eight hundred and seven sixty five Talk more.
Capital US Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia
coming up bottom of the hour Over wb metro news
dot com. This morning, Brad McIlhenny has a story. Attorneys
representing school boards across the state are asking the Supreme
Court to speed up a ruling on the class action

(14:49):
status of those seeking religious exemptions to the state's school
entry vaccination requirements. I Court is currently calling for arguments
on the case to be found by December fifth. Attorneys
for the school boards say that's too late. Brad lays
it all out over at the website wv metronews dot com.
So there's your vaccination requirements lawsuit update December fifth, the

(15:13):
next date.

Speaker 5 (15:13):
It kind of feels like they're setting this up. They're
going to give the legislature one last chance, come in
and figure this out, and if you don't, we'll figure
it out for you.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
I wish it were that simple.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
I think you're right to some degree, and I think
we're gonna be talking a lot about this.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Are we going to be talking.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
About the vaccine requirements, the religious exemption? Maybe we'll be
talking about all the above with the religious freedom and
for the Freedom of Religion Act, the religious requirements.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
It's going to be a mess. It's going to be
a mess.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
I'm not looking forward to the conversations either, to be
honest with you. We've had them all once, twice, three
times before.

Speaker 5 (15:56):
But anyway, if you think down the line, though, I
do think you need the Supreme Court here to weigh
in eventually, for no other reason, then that's how you
get this back at the Fourth Circuit. They're not gonna
hear this again until the Supreme Court rules on it.
And so I think if you're talking about a bigger picture,
which I think a lot of these players are, you

(16:17):
can be focused on West Virginia but also have a
bigger picture at the same time. If you're thinking about
that bigger picture, you need some kind of ruling to
get it back to the Fourth Circuit.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Brad's got the latest over at the website this morning,
wv metro news dot com. A couple of Texters three
or four talk three or four. Trump's going to talk
about fixing the problems he has caused. What a hero,
says the Texter Jared Halpern, is delusional if he thinks
prices will come down if tariffs are removed. Why would
companies lower prices when they already know people will pay

(16:46):
the higher prices. The extra money will be added to
profits to make the next quarter look better at the
shareholder meetings.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
That's capitalism.

Speaker 5 (16:53):
Duh, it's called competition. If you want more market share, Oh,
let me ask you this then, Dave, why are companies
holding back some of these tariffs in order to keep
their market share? That's what they're doing. That's what the
report has been. So no that doesn't hold water. What
will happen is, of course they'll roll back the prices
because they want their market share, and if they don't,

(17:14):
their competitor will in order to gain that market share. Yeah,
it's capitalism. It works.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
That's yes, pretty simple, Pretty simple.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
And with that, I was thinking about both the tariffs,
the Epstein files, Trump in general, TJ he reacts. Trump
is not an idiologue by any stretch the imagination. He's
not conservative, He's not anything, at least.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
From what I can tell.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
And I don't know if this is an emission of, hey,
these aren't working, or this is an emission of people
don't like them, so we're going to roll these back,
all right? The people want the Epstein files, Okay, I'll
get on board with this.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
I don't know if it's that.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
I don't know if it's the political calculus you brought
up of going, all right, this is going to go
nowhere in the Senate. Sure, I'll get on board with
the resolution in the House. I'm not certain what it is,
but we're talking about it. For better or for worse. Well,
let's go with what is simplest, which is usually the answer.
Would Trump be doing any of this if it didn't

(18:15):
benefit Trump, No is the answer. There you go.

Speaker 5 (18:20):
So, no matter what his angle, he'll win out of this,
or else he wouldn't be doing it. He is the
ultimate when it comes to self preservation. And look, I'm
not necessarily saying that's a bad thing. I'm just saying
you can count on him to do what is best
for Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
So how does he win by just getting out in front.

Speaker 5 (18:38):
If he can shift the narrative somehow after it's behind him.
I don't know. Why was he talking about Tucker Carlson yesterday?
Why you want to get into that mess when you
already have everything else that you have going on.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Well, there's another good question, why would you want to
get in that mess? You're right though about the self preservation.
Whatever works best.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
And we won't move on quickly.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
I mean, DJ, you see how quickly the narratives move
on once something happens, the event happens, there's the immediate
reaction and it's on to the next thing.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
And Trump on to that next thing.

Speaker 5 (19:11):
Yeah, I mean, if you really wanted to get away
from this, I'd be talking about cost of health care
right now. I had a little debate going online just
a question and one of the things that I really
want to talk about, and it may not be popular,
but you know, health care insurance is not insurance. What
do I mean by that? The point of insurance is

(19:32):
to mitigate risk, pure and simple, done over. You can't
get fire insurance on a house stave that's already burning,
because that risk is already there, like it or not.
The pools we have today, all the pre existing conditions,
et cetera, you can't mitigate that risk because you're thrown
in with people that are already in that risk pool,
that have those those issues to deal with. Now, should

(19:55):
society play a role in that? Do we want? You know,
those are all big questions, But that's not insurance. That's healthcare.
To the point that you've talked about many times, that
little debate online just boom commic comic, commic, comic comment.
Everybody's talking about what they're paying. Clearly people are focused
on it. Why aren't you talking more about that? If
you're in the White House, it's clearly top of mind

(20:16):
for Americans.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
Do you have a plan?

Speaker 5 (20:20):
Not you your question? No?

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, if you're going to talk about it, that's that
would be our first question, right well, what are your
plan three or four?

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Talk?

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Three or four is the text line eight hundred and
seven to sixty five eight two five five, And we
never talk about the actual cost of health care in
my opinion, TJ. Like your TOD we talk about insurance premiums,
we talk about deductibles.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
What would it cost?

Speaker 2 (20:40):
I've always wanted to bring this question up to you,
and I'm going to do it with sixty five seconds
to go in the segment here, TJ. If we had
to actually pay, you actually had to go in and
write a check, put down cash for procedure the market.
Could the market sustain the prices what it cost for
healthcare right now?

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Never be able to pay for anything?

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Would you if you had to actually go in and
pay what the market could not support it?

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Could it?

Speaker 5 (21:07):
I think there's two ways to think about that. If
you truly had competitive options that you could shop procedures
around and you're paying out a pocket and you're looking
for the best price, then you're putting it back, you know,
on the providers to provide you the cheapest price. If not,
then no. But yeah, that's that's a deep topic and
we need to get some folks in on that. I
got some ideas and people we can talk to you

(21:28):
because I don't know the industry well enough, and I
brought it up.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
With sixty seconds to go in the segment. That's where
we like to do our deep topics. In the final
seconds of the segment. Coming up, more capital is going
to join us. He's the US Attorney for the Southern
District of West Virginia. We'll talk to him in the moment.
This is Talk Liannel Metro News, the Voice of West Virginia.
It is ten thirty time to get a news update.
Let's check in on the Metro News radio network find

(21:52):
out what's happening across the Great State.

Speaker 14 (21:55):
West Virginia. Metro News, I'm Jeff Jenkins. Mingo County School
Superintendent doctor Joeeda. Bacelly says getting things straightened out there
hasn't been easy. She gave a report to the State
Board of Education last week after the board took over
Mingo County Schools a few months ago. Selly says she
found problems with the school system's finances. She says required
financial policies we're not being followed, and she says she

(22:16):
also encountered red flags impersonnel.

Speaker 10 (22:19):
Records for missing contracts were non existent in some instances,
and postings or job descriptions for loss.

Speaker 14 (22:25):
The State Board of Education also heard reports last week
from Nicholas and Tyler Counties. West Virginia currently does not
have a natural gas powered power plant, but that's about
the change if announcements made in the past two weeks
come through. State Energy Office Director Nick Preservati says both
First Energy and three private developers or in north central
West Virginia for their plants. Presevadi predicts more development in

(22:45):
that region.

Speaker 15 (22:46):
This area in West Virginia, when you take it, it's
one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world,
so it makes sense to go there. So absolutely, one
hundred percent we're looking for more opportunities in this same region.

Speaker 14 (22:57):
Meanwhile, Bluestone Co owes more than three mill billion dollars
in tax liens for taxes not paid in mcdowbll County.
Bluestone is owned by us Ander Jim justice In family.
The family also faces tax liens in Greenbrier County, along
with a lean filed for sales taxes collective but not
passed on to the state. Bluestone is not commented read
more on the latest leans at wv metronews dot com.

(23:18):
You're listening to Metro News for forty years, the voice
of West Virginia.

Speaker 16 (23:23):
How can you measure the value of education based athletics. Well,
the value is in what makes it invaluable. That's because
school sports aren't just about winning. They're about learning and growing.
School sports aren't just about gaining trophies and accolades. They're
about learning life lessons, bringing the whole community together, developing

(23:44):
character and integrity, having coaches who mentor you, and teammates
who become lifelong friends. And you can't put a price
on any of that. That's what makes education based athletics invaluable.
Of course, when you participate in school sports, you want
to and become a better athlete, but the purpose is
so much greater becoming a better person. Support your local

(24:08):
school sports programs and if you have a student, encourage
them to get involved.

Speaker 5 (24:13):
This message presented by the WBSSAC and the West Virginia
Athletic Directors Association.

Speaker 14 (24:21):
State Treasurer Larry Podcast a news conference schedule for later
this morning at the state Capitol. Pick will be laying
out his legislative priorities for the upcoming regular session that
begins in January. Then news conference set to start at eleven.
A road trip today for state school Superintendent Michelle black
Show joined Raleigh County Superintendent doctor Serena Starcher on visits
to Stanford Elementary and Mapscott Elementary schools. Both schools are

(24:42):
being recognized for improving test scores, and they both improve
those over the last several years. From the Metro News
anchored ask, I'm Jeff Jenkins, three.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Oh four Talk, three oh four. That's the text line.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
You can always give us a call at eight hundred
and seven sixty five Talk eight hundred and seven sixty
five eight two five five. Remember all the way back
in October for the federal government shutdown. More Capitol was
named US Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.
He joins us on Metro News talk line this morning
more Good morning, Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 17 (25:37):
Good morning, Dave. Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
Appreciate you coming on. More Capitol previously served in the
West Virginia Legislature. He was chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
He has been a practicing attorney and now takes over
as the US attorney for the Southern District. More, what
interested you in this position? Why through your name in
the ring?

Speaker 17 (25:56):
Well, I tell you what, It's a real honor and
a privilege to even be considered for a position like this,
and I'm grateful to the President for nominating me and
the opportunity to make a difference in a state that
I love. So I think that's really what drives it all, Dave,
is a passion for the state of West Virginia and

(26:18):
an opportunity to serve my country.

Speaker 5 (26:21):
More. Congratulations on your appointment. Give me your top three
as you survey the office and the district. What do
you want to do? Well?

Speaker 17 (26:31):
Thanks TJ. And good good talking with you. You know,
one of the things that we are going to be
focused on in this office flows from, you know, the
President's initiative to under the banner of Operation Take Back America.
And when you look at some of the damage that
is going on in the communities in West Virginia, it's

(26:52):
not unlike the rest of the country, and a lot
of what underpins that are drugs. We've seen that in
West Virginia for a long time, but that web of
drug activity really is more sophisticated than it was know
that it's flowing from the southern border. So we're going

(27:13):
to focus assets to make sure that our interdiction efforts
here in West Virginia are as strong as anywhere else
in the country, because we know that we have to
get rid of supply in West Virginia and we're going
to crack down on that one. We know we have
tremendous partnerships, not only with our excellent law enforcement officials

(27:35):
on the federal level, but you know, I don't think
everybody knows about all of the task forces that we
have with state and local law enforcement. We have over
fourteen task forces across this state that are working hard
every day to, you know, make sure that we are
ridding the community of drugs and violent crime that goes
along with those drugs. So we will carry that out,

(27:58):
we will excel in that, and we will double down
on those efforts. I always have been passionate about the
next generation in West Virginia and what are we going
to do to protect that next generation? And those are
our kids. There are very dangerous child predators that are
not only here in West Virginia. There are dangerous child

(28:19):
predators that are outside of West Virginia. That are reaching
into West Virginia to try to damage our children. And
I cannot tell you the many stories that I have
heard about that, and we will put a focus and
a lens on that to ensure that we are pulling
dangerous predators off of the streets so that our children

(28:41):
are safe. And finally, I would say corruption, fraud, and
abuse in the state of West Virginia. We've had a
ton of federal dollars that have flown that have flowed
into West Virginia for recovery or all sorts of other services,
and we're going to make make sure that those funds
were not misappropriated, we're not fraudulently used, and we're gonna

(29:04):
hold people accountable. And lastly, I would say that, you
know when I'm very passionate about protecting obviously our children,
you know, as a father, I'm very passionate about that,
but also we're gonna protect our seniors. We have folks
that are calling every single day trying to rip off
our vulnerable people in West Virginia. We're gonna get to
the bottom of these scams and hold these people accountable

(29:27):
as well. So I don't know if that's three there. TJ.
But you know, I tried to bullet it as good
as I could.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Or more capital joining us USKED District Attorney for the
Southern District of West Virginia. Uh More, you were talking
about the fentanyl coming across the border. It's not like
it's just a straight line from you know, the southern
border to West Virginia.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
That web is intricate, It is complicated.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
It goes up to Detroit and that comes down into
you know, the northern part of the state, eastern Panhandle
has drug distribute distributors coming in from the Washington.

Speaker 5 (29:59):
D c.

Speaker 18 (30:00):
Area.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
How do you get a handle on such.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
A complex web, a complex network that brings drugs into
West Virginia.

Speaker 17 (30:07):
Let me just take a second to step back. You
had mentioned that the shutdown, and I do want to
say it's been an interesting time to start this in
the middle of a shutdown. But I can tell you
that this office, the attorneys in this office, and the
staff in this office did not skip a beat. We
had over twenty five guilty please thirty one defendants were
sentenced in that time frame. People were coming to work

(30:30):
without being paid because they wanted to ensure that justice
was done. And then the people West Virginia were safe.
Now ask to your question about how do we get
our hands around that intricate web. Well, I'd like to
say that we've increased efforts to communicate, not only with
our partners. We have really great tools at our disposal.

(30:50):
We have the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Unit, we
call that HAIDA. They're using sophisticated technology to trace where
some of these packages are going around the country so
that we know when they stop in. You know, for instance,
as you said Detroit, we know the next stop is
you know, X, Y and z. So the more that

(31:11):
we can begin to track and predict, the better that
we're going to be at interdiction.

Speaker 5 (31:17):
Well, let's talk about excuse me, I hate when that happens.
Well something in third there, apologies. Talk with me about
the idea of making sure that we crack down on fraud.
Let's go into that a little bit. You may not
have directly had much to do with this, just coming
into office, but I want to talk about Michael David Barker.

(31:37):
He's that Boone County maintenance director that embezzled money from
the school system, defrauded of three point four million. His
sentence was thirty three months in prison. He has to
pay back that three point four million. I believe it
was a couple hundred dollars at a time. Many from
that area feel like that was a slap on the wrist.
Is that a severe enough punishment to one's people for

(32:00):
what they've actually done to deter the next guy from
doing it?

Speaker 17 (32:04):
Well, let me just say what what what occurred in
Boone County was was a shame and uh, you know
you're and it's it's even worse when we're talking about
a person in a position of public trust as uh
as mister Barker was. You know, we prosecute and pursue
as we are directed by you know, justice. We are

(32:25):
going to prosecute the most serious offense. And that is
what uh you know we're doing. Uh you know I
I and and we will always pursue that most serious
offense with the highest uh sentence possible. What they did
was a scheme that went on for far too long.
TJ and I often say it, and I want to

(32:48):
say it again here is that if you see something,
you know, mention it to somebody, you know, whether it
has to do with fraud or uh, you're doing and
you know you're accounting on the books, or you see
something that doesn't look right in your neighborhood. So often
the tips that we get that lead to prosecution and
removal of dangerous and fraudulent people from our neighborhoods come

(33:09):
from within.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Or Capitol joining us. He's the US Attorney for the
Southern District of West Virginia. I've been on the job.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Now well a little over a month. Was confirmed by
the Senate back in October.

Speaker 19 (33:24):
More.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
What's on the docket today. You've got a busy day ahead,
we do.

Speaker 17 (33:29):
We're heading down to Field in Princeton today, So good
trip to Mercer County in the southern West Virginia today
to meet with some of our state and local partners.
We are making it a priority, and I'm making it
a priority as having to pass to get on the road.
I will be out in the communities because I want

(33:50):
to hear from our local partners on what's going on
in those communities. I believe that the best solutions the
problems that we face are in those communities. So we're
doing exactly that today. I think i'll leave here in
about thirty minutes and we'll be there for the balance
of the afternoon, and then onto Huntington tomorrow, and on

(34:11):
and on and on.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
More capital. US Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Congratulations on the appointment and best of luck to you.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
We'll be talking.

Speaker 17 (34:19):
I'm sure good talking to you guys.

Speaker 6 (34:22):
Have a good day you too.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
More capital there. US Attorney Southern District of West Virginia.
Text lines open three or four Talk three or four.
Phone number is eight hundred and seven to sixty five.
Talk eight hundred seven sixty five eight two five five.
This is talk line from the ing Cove Insurance Studios.

Speaker 19 (34:38):
Governor Patrick Morrissey has set a very bold goal fifty
gigawatts of new energy capacity by twenty fifty. Thanks to
House Bill twenty fourteen, West Virginia's coal plans will be
upgraded to run longer, stronger, and more efficiently, thus delivering reliable,
affordable base load power. Our families and businesses will be

(34:59):
able to count. West Virginia Coal Association President Chris Hamilton
stated Governor Morrissey's plan to grow West Virginia's energy generation
capacity to fifty gigawatts by twenty fifteen is a dynamic
approach to economic development, which will supercharge our state's coal
industry and broader economy. With Governor Morris's leadership and the

(35:20):
action of the legislature, West Virginia is once again America's
energy leader.

Speaker 5 (35:26):
Cole is powering Progress. Cole is Powering West Virginia.

Speaker 19 (35:30):
Brought you by the West Virginia Coal Association.

Speaker 4 (35:49):
Natural News talk Line is presented by Incovia Insurance and
circling you with coverage to protect what you care about most.
Visitancova dot com to learn more.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
The hour, we're going to talk to Tiffany hobin with
the Cardinal Institute here in West Virginia. In a lot
of discussion about the school aid formula.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
What needs to be tweaked?

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Does it need to be overhauled to address the funding
issues in West Virginia's public schools in twenty twenty five.
That formula has not been really messed with it all
since the nineties. Well, the Cardinal Institute has an idea
on how to improve it. We'll talk to Tiffany Hoben
coming up top of the hour three h four talk
three oh four. Texter wants to know why are they

(36:30):
holding back prices favors for Donnie Trump cutting taxes an
increasing corporate welfare, and so his approval ratings would not tank.
But Trump took care of that himself. Why didn't they
hold back prices during Biden's presidency when COVID was happening,
asks the Texter.

Speaker 5 (36:47):
I don't know about the COVID thing, but one of
the reasons they're doing it now is because these tariffs
artificially inflate prices. And the long term view from those
who run these companies is that three years from now,
Donald Trump won't be there and many of these tariffs
will revert back to what they were pre Trump administration.

(37:09):
And market share is the lifeblood of a business. If
you have spent years and years building a business, building
a product line in order to have market share, you
don't want to give that up for any reason. So
they're willing to take the short term hit to preserve
the long term integrity of their product lines and their businesses.
But it has to reconcile at some point. You can

(37:31):
only do that for so long, and.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
The US Supreme Court could come back necessarily as this
summer and say no, it was unconstitutional and poop. I
don't know if it's as simple as that, and proof
that the tariffs are gone. But I mean that could
happen your a hedge in your bed.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
You're right, TJY, either this summer or three years down
the road.

Speaker 5 (37:51):
And this argument of protectionism, Oh, we're encouraging us manufacturing
again because we can't compete with cheap life labor from abroad.
I don't think that works long term either. I've never
believed that protectionism is a good long term economic strategy.
We are never going to be able to compete on
labor costs with many of the countries we do business with.

(38:13):
That's what happens when you're a rich country. You have
trade offs and you have other people do your productivity
for you because we want cheap goods here. We're addicted. Now,
is there a place for tariffs in terms of China
when it comes to the de facto cold war that
we're fighting with China. Yeah, I can get on board
with tariffing China, but not our allies. That makes no sense,

(38:35):
or our friendly countries. That makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Three or four talk three or four is the text line.
This Texter says, let's get the week started off right.
It's a it's a meme. Of the soup Nazi. You
know something, no suit for you? Come back one year.

Speaker 5 (38:50):
By the way, I loved when Elaine just went in
with his recipes and said, hey, buddy, Maligatani.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Uh, we're just what a little over a month away
from Festivus. By the way, TEXTA says TJ has a
concept of a health plan.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Hey take it to Washington, d C. See what you
can do there.

Speaker 5 (39:07):
I wouldn't say I have a concept. There's a couple
of people I think that we could have on that. Noah,
heck of a lot more than I do on this.
It's not my expertise, but I mean I think of
a provider of last resort, one catastrophic high deductible plan
that the government offers everything else is gone. The reality

(39:29):
of this, though, and it's not popular, is that in
America we try every last thing. Would you would you
agree that most of the cost comes in near the
end of life?

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (39:38):
Yes, okay, oh yeah. I watched the documentary a couple
of weeks ago as a frontline piece. It was a
bit datd it was a while back, but it was
talking about in America, we want the biggest, latest new
innovative cancer treatment we grasp for this, we grasp for that,
whereas many in the world otherwise out of this country,

(40:02):
if the standard treatment doesn't suffice, they start to talk
about palliative care, they start to talk about dying with dignity.
In America, though, we want that next big thing and
we want to strive to be And I'm not saying
that's bad, don't get me wrong, but that documentary really
opened my eyes to a person's decision to plan what

(40:26):
time they have left live pain free. Many of these
treatments will cause additional pain and grasping with the reality
of death versus striving for something that may not prolong
your life and may not add meaning to your life
in those instances and those desires to reach forward for
whatever that cure may be. And again I'm not knocking

(40:47):
that those costs start to skyrocket, and it's just the
reality of the situation.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Texter says, as a retired nurse and a healthcare provider,
I can tell you that decreasing health care cost is
going to be difficult. People are motivated by many things
besides price and their choices of where to receive health care, distance, reputation,
and personal history with a particular provider are far more
important than price points for most people. Furthermore, people have
no idea what it actually cost to provide healthcare. Lastly,

(41:16):
healthcare is a right. Just because someone cannot afford to
pay the going rate does not mean they should not
receive the healthcare. That would be both unethical and disastrous.
Says the Texter.

Speaker 5 (41:28):
Uh, go ahead, No, okay, it's a right, but to
what degree? Kind of gets back to what I was
just talking.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
About exactly was about to point out.

Speaker 5 (41:38):
I don't have the answer to you. I mean, I'm
genuinely asking here, trying to get a good consensus because
I don't know where that line is.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
I mean, that is a I guess we're getting into
that territory of philosophical questions. If you are in a
car accident, you should be able to go to the
take you to the emergency room and receive treatment. I
think that's I think we would all agree to that
fair right. M Yeah, you are battling some disease, some condition.

(42:04):
Do you have a right to the latest and greatest
as you brought up, or do you have a right
to some level of care?

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Or do you have no right?

Speaker 5 (42:11):
Off?

Speaker 1 (42:12):
You don't have any money?

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Do you have no right at all because somebody's got
to pay for that. That's not a popular opinion, but
that is an option out there as well.

Speaker 5 (42:20):
But those are three really good questions that you just
raised that we don't want to deal with because they
make us feel uncomfortable, and we try to talk about
health insurance to mitigate that, etc. When insurance will not
fix the problem that we have. We need to take
those kinds of questions, take them head on, and start
to have serious conversations. And anytime you do that. Who

(42:40):
was the congress lady that tried to do that? She
got booed off the stage. You remember a while back
she tried to raise some of these points and I
put her off.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
The stage, and I think the text her and this
is kind of what I try to bring up earlier.
We don't actually know what it cost to provide the care.
What is the actual cost if I go in to
get a trip and fall down the steps and break
my leg, what is the actual cost of treating the
broken leg? I'm not talking about what what is the
insurance company paying? What's my deductible? What's my what's the

(43:10):
actual cost? I have no idea, No idea, And I
don't think anybody else does either.

Speaker 5 (43:14):
No, they don't. And what's startling to me about your point?
Americans let that slide. Would we let that slide on
anything else that we buy? No, No, we shop it around,
we get the best price. We do this and that.
Healthcare we let that slide. And maybe financial services. We
have no idea what kind of fees we're paying the
banks and everybody else. So there are the two things,

(43:36):
and I don't get why we'll let those two things
go and not be as critical of those two commodities
as we are everything else.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Three or four Talk three or four is the text line,
eight hundred seven to sixty five Talk eight hundred seven
sixty five eight two five five. That's the phone number
back to wrap up our number one in a moment.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
This is talk line from the Encode Insurance Studios.

Speaker 20 (43:56):
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(44:18):
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Speaker 5 (44:29):
Here at the Helm.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
We are here.

Speaker 21 (44:35):
From all of us, here at the Health Plan. We
want to make your season bright. Whether you're wrapping gifts
or planning next year's goals, we are here for you.
Happy holidays and Merry Christmas. From our family to yours.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
Here.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Jackpots are growing in West Virginia. Jackpots are on the rise.
Every week. Power Ball hits Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Mega
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Millions jackpot is fifty million. To go ahead, play today.
A little bit of breaking news this morning Over at
Jones C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington, the Home Radio Broadcast
Booth was officially renamed this morning in honor of the
longtime voice of the Thundering Herd, the Steve Cotton Broadcast Suite,

(45:58):
honoring Steve in his three LUs decades behind the mic
there at Marshall. Congratulations to Steve Cotton. Couldn't think of
a guy who deserves it any more. The Steve Cotton
Broadcasting Suite now at Jones C.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Edward Stadium. Pretty cool for Steve.

Speaker 5 (46:14):
Yeah, job well done, that's awesome. Congratulations to Steve. What
a what a testament.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
They got a nice little sign on the door and
they put up a mural I guess the timeline of
all of the men who have been the voice of
the herd over there. Okay, so a pretty cool deal
down there this morning. And the best part they were
able to surprise him. And it takes a lot of
work to get one over on old Steve Cotton.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
I shouldn't say old.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
It takes a lot of work to get one over
on Cotton because he knows what's going on.

Speaker 5 (46:48):
Man, you know him. You can get away with that.
Hey request for you next time you're in the booth there. Yeah,
snap a few pictures of that historical timeline and pop
them up for us. Oh, we'll do that.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
The thing the Athletic Department got a couple up on
the uh on the timeline are on the on the
Twitter machine there. Okay, you know Frank Guardina used to
be did some herd games back in the day West Durham.
Some of the names Stan Cotton no relation to Steve Cotton.
Some of the names had have been through the booth
there in Huntington. All right, Second hour coming up the
school aid formula. We'll talk about it in six minutes.

Speaker 4 (47:29):
Metro News talk Line is presented by Encova Insurance, encircling
you with coverage to protect what you care about most.
Visit incova dot com to learn more.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Second Hour Metro News talk Line from the Encobe Insurance studios.
So you're having a great start so the week. Appreciate
you tuning in one of one of the great radio
affiliates across the state of West Virginia. Or if you're
watching on the Metro News TV app.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Jake Link is our video producer.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Sophia Wasick is handling the audio side of things this morning.
You can be part of the show by giving us
a call eight hundred and seven sixty five Talk eight
hundred and seven sixty five eight two five five. You
can text the show at three oh four Talk three four.
Busy weekend in sports that all started with the Mountaineer
Women upsetting Duke in a crazy game Friday, and went

(48:18):
right through the weekend with college football and soccer, high
school playoff football as well. Joe Bricado stops by bottom
of the hour to recap it all for us. We'll
get to your text and phone calls as well. Once
again from the Charleston Studios, TJ. Meadows joins us as usual,
Morning sir, Good morning, Happy Monday to everybody out there.

Speaker 5 (48:39):
Lots going on.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Have the Have the Christmas decorations gone up yet at
the Whole Meadows house?

Speaker 5 (48:45):
Yes? They did. My wife, she's a saint. I hate
that stuff. Don't want to do it. Don't want to
do it. She was out what last week with the
kids and got the outdoor lights up. Tree went up
over the weekend. We host thingksgiving in our house and
folks tend to like the decord to be up. So yeah,
she's so, she's on it.

Speaker 18 (49:06):
Man.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
So you've got Christmas stuff up for Thanksgiving?

Speaker 5 (49:10):
Yes, it's kind of like one big holiday.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
I suppose. I suppose. Yeah we are.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Our tree is up, but it is not decorated yet. Okay,
there's some stuff out in the house. The outdoor lights
have not gone up yet. Uh, that's usually that's usually
my job to do the outdoor lights some years ago,
Clark Griswold some years you know, tune it back a little.
It depends on time availability.

Speaker 5 (49:38):
If it weren't for my children, there would be no
outdoor lights. I'm just the way it is. She's ezer No,
I'm very festive, always saying Merry Christmas, love the time.
I just you know, I don't want that stuff up
on my house. I don't want to drill into the
sofet or put different hangers on the sofet, or nails
or different I just I don't want to do it.
I don't want to be up on the ladder and fall. Sorry,

(50:01):
I'm gonna do it. I'm too busy working to pay
for my healthcare insurance for my kids. I can't afford
to fall.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
That's the way to bring it back around. We'll get
back to your text on that coming up in just
a bit. So we've been talking kind of in the
ether about school funding. Obviously there have been consolidations or
been school closings. Does the state school aid formula need
to be tweaked? Does it need to be overhauled? Nobody's
done much with it since the nineties. Well, the Cardinal

(50:30):
Institute for Westernia Policy has an idea on how to
revamp the school aid formula. Joining us on the program
this morning to explain is Tiffany Hopin, director of Education
Partnerships and Strategy with Cardin Institute.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Tiffany, good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 6 (50:47):
How are you guys doing doing well?

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Appreciate you joining us. So when we get into the
school aid formula, it gets complicated quickly, but basically, I
mean very on a very basic level, Tiff kind of
break this down. How does the current formula work to
distribute state funds to public schools across the state?

Speaker 6 (51:08):
Right, So, the current funding formula, the way it's set up,
it starts with like there's tiers, and it starts with
what are your staffing ratios, what are the building allowances
that you need? What transportation like mileage formulas and gasoline
for buses and that kind of things. That kind of
starts at that enrollment is a calculation, but it's it's

(51:31):
down the line sort of after those top priorities and
so what we see districts do. And there's tons of
research on this from places like the Georgetown Agenomics Lab
and bell Weather that school districts kind of and it
makes sense if you think about it. You know, you
got your cell budget from last year and you just
kind of like cop copy and pasted into this year

(51:52):
and get started from there. Like that's your baseline, and
that's sort of how we've been doing it. And what
we're proposing is that we move students to the very
top tier, like that's the number one consideration and then
everything else is like a by product of having like
a baseline student number.

Speaker 5 (52:11):
So let's get into some of these metrics. You talk
about the staffing ratio seventy two point three teachers per
one thousand students, regardless of actual staffing needs. Elaborate on
the Cardinal Institute's thought with that ratio.

Speaker 6 (52:26):
Yeah, I don't The ratio just of teachers to students
is something that you know, different legislators across the country
have come up with different numbers for stuff. I think
that the staffing ratio for teachers is less important than
the administrative vote that we've seen over the years. In
West Virginia. In the last like ten years, administration to

(52:48):
spawn up like two and a half percent in the
number of administrative positions that we have and enrollments down
ten percent, right, So we've inched up a little bit
of time on how many any sort of other people
we have in the buildings and the district offices that
aren't teachers, while the number of actual students in our
classrooms has gone down. And I think that teaching ratios

(53:12):
matter a lot for students. I was a teacher for
fifteen years. It makes a difference if you're a middle
school teacher whether you have twenty students in your class
or twenty five students in your class. That's really a
very big difference. So I'm way less concerned with teacher
ratios than I am with the administrative float. But the

(53:33):
formula should still be a baseline number per individual student.
You start from that and then you build based on
the individual student's need from a baseline numerical value a
dollar amount free student.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Tiffany Hobin is joining US Director of Education Partnerships and
Strategy Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy. You mentioned transportation
funding mileage to plan if you're a school district bus routes,
as if every student who's enrolled at a public school
is going to be riding the school bus. That's costly,
that's expensive, it takes time, and we all know not

(54:11):
all kids for riding the school buses. In fact, it
seems like that is declining, just like enrollment.

Speaker 6 (54:17):
Yeah, absolutely, and those you know. My argument in saying
well we need to look at the funding formula again
is not to say staffing resoos don't matter what you
pay for your building in consequential or that like getting
the kids to school and the school bus is like
going to disappear as a need. And as you said,

(54:39):
not every kid rides the school bus. And you know
you need the same bus whether there's ten kids going
to the school or twenty kids going to the school.
So it's an understandable need. What I'm saying is, let's
think about what we want to prioritize. Right when you
talk about like school consolidations, these schools are making visions

(55:00):
to consolidate and they're getting rid of one major expense
as an overhead, right that building is going away and
they're consolidating into one building, and what is the cost.
All I'm saying is look at the cost difference. What
is the cost difference between the building and how much
your paying to keep that building running and staff all
the people in that building with very low ratios because

(55:20):
you've got fewer students versus what transportation costs, right, And
to look at those things and say, what's the return
on investment on all of this stuff? To me, the
analogy that I always think of in my head is
if you are sitting down to make your own budget
for your household, what trade offs do you make every
single day? Are we building on vacation this year? Is

(55:41):
there money for that right? Are we buying everybody gripsas present,
or are we only going to stick to the family
this year? Like families have to make decisions and school
districts just have to start doing the same thing. And
I think a revamped funding formula would center everything on it.
Like you said at the top, it's so complicated. We
can make it so simple and say, look, we have

(56:03):
a dollar or not for every kid. We build on
extra funding for DSSE, for language learners, for students you
know that need something else, and we build tiers for that.
And then the schools can sit down with their budget
and say, okay, we have this many kids, we have
this many dollars, what do we want to prioritize what

(56:23):
is going to be the best investment in our kids,
what will move the needle on academics and get them
where they need to be. And I just think it's
time for that. We lived in this like convoluted place
for so long. It's time to give these districts a
clean slate with a real amount of money to operate from,
so that they can start making these trade offs and

(56:44):
think about what's really important to them.

Speaker 5 (56:47):
So I do want to clarify in terms of that
consolidation that you just talked about, would you support the
consolidations that we've seen, like in Rome County for instance,
Barbara County voted the other night to close middle schools
and put it all at Philip Barber. Is that a
good move in your opinion? Or I want to make
sure I understand where you're coming froun on that I.

Speaker 6 (57:04):
Think it is. I wrote an op ed that was
published last week where I said that I do think
that Ron made the right call. I also think that
it was hard because consolidations are not easy. It takes
a toll in the community, people are affected by it.
It does mean longer bus rides for kids sometimes. However,
I also think that it was a decision that will

(57:27):
be for not if they don't, if we don't give
them an opportunity and they don't start thinking differently about
how they spend their money. And the real question with
spending money is money is an investment in something. What
are we investing in. We're investing in the future of
our kids, the academic proficiency of our children. And when

(57:48):
we sit down at the table and say what are
we spending our money on? I think outcomes should be
part of that. I think that districts should be making
two and three year plans for budget. It's not one
year plans for bust. I think they should have to
look at every program that they buy and look at
those outcomes and say, are we getting our money's work
on this? Do we need to keep doing it? I
just think it needs to be a more meticulous process.

(58:12):
But in general, yes, I think that run County made
the right decision, and I think it's coming not just
for districts in West Virginia, this is happening across the country.
California is consolidated school buildings. America has too many buildings
for its current population of kids.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Tiffany Hopin is joining us.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
She is Director of Education and Partnerships and Strategy with
Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Should there be a baseline funding?

Speaker 2 (58:36):
Should there be a floor for these school systems to
because they have to operate a system, there are cost
associated transportation, you got to maintain the facilities. Should there
be just a baseline funding for the school systems across
the state?

Speaker 6 (58:51):
Well, I would turn that around and say, what do
you consider baseline facilities? And maybe that's something we need
to think about too. What is a baseline facility? Just
every and again this is in my I've talked about
a little bit of this in my off ed. There
are rural communities all over the country that are just
changing the way they operate. They're saying, you know what,

(59:12):
we're not going to have a PE program and buy
a bunch of equipment and have a coach. We're going
to like go for a hike in the woods. Because
that's we have to start stripping down some things that
we don't need as much as others, Like we really
want to keep our reading interventionists. Because she's moving the
needle and she's doing a great job with these kids.
The next year we're going to change the way we
do things. We're going to have one teacher teach two

(59:32):
grade levels of maths. We're going to have the counselor
also teach calculus because he knows how to do that.
And they're they're questioning the norm so that they're not
just saying every building gets X regardless. Maybe that's too
expensive for your district and you need to start thinking
about it differently.

Speaker 5 (59:50):
You talked about administrative positions and administrative bloat. I want
to define that because I think that's a fair point,
but crystallize it for me, what position should be on
the block that we don't need?

Speaker 6 (01:00:05):
Well, I mean, at the end of the day, I
do think that schools and school districts kind of have
to to some degree decide that for themselves. Right Like
if at my school, like I said, if maybe I
give an example that at my school that I work at,
our kids are making impressive gains and readings because I've
got a reading specialist that's a rock star, and she's

(01:00:28):
coming in and moving the needle every day and in
the scores are going up. I'm not getting rid of her, right,
but there are a lot of sort of ancillary positions
that exist, like it's a district level instructional coaches and
content specialists and things where maybe a district could look
and say, we can actually have one person do two
of these jobs instead of having two people to do this.

(01:00:51):
Every school has a lot of interventionists, and so, you know,
different schools, in school districts and different states categorize like
what is an interventionist. Is your interventionist dealing with kids
and helping them with academics, or is it somebody who's
a behavioral interventionists? And so I think, you know, there's
a lot of extra positions that quite frankly, just didn't
exist when we were in school. These jobs weren't a thing.

(01:01:15):
And for the funding that the school district's got from
the COVID relief money, the federal COVID relief money has
been sort of ban dating everywhere across the country that
we've got a lot of extra people on staff that
weren't here ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. And the stressor
now right the fissure right now is that money is

(01:01:36):
going away. Districts are looking at their budgets and going, well,
we have this extra you know, million dollars that's not
going to be on the books next year. But we
have these extra people and we want to keep them.
And it's such decisions that have to be made.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Tiffany, how much of the funding should be coming from?
Try to phrase this question correctly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Put all the money in one pot and distribute it
evenly across the state. Versus you have counties that have
a tremendous amount of economic development, they have excess levees.
You have counties that don't have economic development, don't have
access levees.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
There's an inequity.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
And how you know how much money is available in
say Montingelia County versus Boom County. Do we need to
look at how that money is distributed.

Speaker 6 (01:02:18):
Well, different states take different approaches to this. You know,
some some of these, like California has this sort of
like local control funding formula where they do that and
not really improves like equity right in terms of the
amount of money being distributed evenly across the districts. But
you know, at the end of the day, there are

(01:02:39):
thirty there are thirty states in the United States that
have a student based formula, and they're all different. None
of them are completely identical to each other, and I'm
not an expert in all of them. All I know
for sure is that a student based formula in some
configuration is better than starting with resources, because that's what

(01:03:02):
are we doing. Are we having resources or are we
teaching students? Right, that's the question that you come down to,
brass tracks. It's about kids and the funding formula should
reflect that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Tiffany Hobin, Cardinal Institute, Director of Education Partnerships and Strategy.
Thanks for the insights today, Tiffany appreciate it absolutely. Thank
you guys, absolutely appreciate you coming on. And by the way,
there is a what is the teacher a forum? Is
that what you would call it tonight in Rome County?

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
Yeah? Forum workshop? You know, we talked to the superintendent
of Rome County Schools, Michelle Stillatto. We talked to her
a few weeks back about the decision that they had
to face, and one of the things that they're doing
is inviting people from all over the state to participate
in a workshop that would further define what improvements we
might be able to make to the school. Late formula

(01:03:52):
that's going on tonight, I believe at Roane County High School,
I think it was a six o'clock start. I'll look
that up between the break and confirm but interested parties
that they're doing that, and hopefully we can have her
on tomorrow to talk about what tangibles, if any, they
come away with it that might be for the better.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
This will come up again in January when we get
back to the state legislature in the session gets underway.
This is going to be a topic. I don't know
if it goes anywhere. It was a topic last year.
And let me tell you, man, I sat in on
a couple of those presentations in House education. It gets
complicated quickly. There's math, there's you know, letters involved in
the equations. It gets complicated quickly, as Tiffany illustrated there well.

Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
And the reality is, if we weren't willing to fix
it last year, Dave, when we weren't facing primary and
general elections, and now a session we are, are we
going to be any more willing to upset the Apple card?

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
History would say no ToJ No, That's what it would say.
It says no.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
All right, we'll get to your text coming up, Joe Bricado.
Bottom of the hour.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
This is talk line from the en Cove Insurance Studios.

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Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Three or four Talk three or four is the text
line eight hundred and seven sixty five eight two five
five the phone number.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
Texter says, I.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
Can revamp your school aid program with one quick little sentence.
Get rid of the hope scholarship. It's all about school choice.
If they have the choice to do whatever they want,
doesn't mean you get a refund on your taxes because
you're not happy. I'm not happy with the interstate work
on I seventy nine near Morgantown. I have never driven
on it. Do I get that money back? I'm sure
somewhere the state spends millions in Logan County and in

(01:06:43):
Mercer County, two places will never go. Do I get
that money back? Says the texture.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
All right, let me just here's all use the scope.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
Correct me if I am wrong here. Somebody with regard
to the Hope Scholarship. If if little TJ metaw, may
I pick on you for a minute, to TJ? Go
for it, buddy, if you are attending where'd you go?
You went to Sherman, right.

Speaker 5 (01:07:06):
Sherman High School in Boone County.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
All right, buddy, you leave Sherman. You decide you are
going to be the next great athlete. You want to
go to a private school to so you can get
that football scholarship. Yeah, you leave Sherman High School. When
they rework, when they do the student enrollment the next
year and you're not there, they lose a little bit

(01:07:28):
of funding because TJ's not at the high school because
why student enrollment came down?

Speaker 5 (01:07:32):
Correct, That's the way I understand it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
So even if the Hope Scholarship, what the difference for
the Hope Scholarship is, These students may not choose to leave,
may not choose homeschooling, These families may not choose private
schools without that funding available. But it's not as though
the public schools would be getting the money without the student.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 5 (01:07:50):
Makes sense completely?

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
So you can blame the Hope Scholarship. And yes, yes,
more families are choosing alternative options because of this scholarship.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
But if it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Did not exist, and these students were still leaving, we
were still having declining enrollments, we'd still we still have
the same problems.

Speaker 5 (01:08:06):
And I think the other side of that, I have
not seen an explosion in supply when it comes to
private and parochial schools. There's a fix to supply, so
they can only take on so many students unless there's
been tons of new schools open that I'm unaware of,
which in this day and age, is possible. I miss
a lot all right, coming.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
Up speaking in public schools, going to be talking to
Joe Briccado Mountaineers went on the road, came up shore
to Arizona State Mountaineer basketball tonight, women won on Saturday.
Marshall one had soccer yesterday. All kinds of stuff to
get into with Joe bro We will discuss on the
other side of the break. More of your texts coming
up as well at three or four Talk three four

(01:08:45):
and eight hundred seven sixty five talk eight hundred seven
six five eight two five five. That's the text line,
that's the phone number. Joe Riccato will join us, coming
up in just a Moment's daven TJ from the Cove
Insurance Studios on Metro News. For forty years, Metro News
has been the voice of West Virginia. It is eleven

(01:09:09):
thirty and time to get a news update. Let's check
in on the Metro News radio network and find out
what's happening all across the great state of West Virginia.

Speaker 18 (01:09:19):
West Virginia Attorney News, I'm Chris Lawrence. West Virginia looks
to be adding a pair of natural gas fired power
plants in the years ahead. Nick Preservati, the head of
the Energy Office for West Virginia, says it's affirmation that
Harrison County is one of the top places for energy development.

Speaker 15 (01:09:33):
This area in West Virginia. When you take it it's
one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world,
so it makes sense to go there. So absolutely, one
hundred percent, we're looking for more opportunities in this same region.

Speaker 18 (01:09:43):
First Energy announcing plans first for a gas fired plant
somewhere in northern West Virginia, but a second merchant plant
is also scheduled to be built by a consortium of
private developers in Harrison County. WBU President Michael T. Benson's
been traveling the state ever since he arrived on campus
in Morgantown and has talked to lot about his desire
to draw more West Virginia High School graduates to Morgantown

(01:10:04):
to continue their education. That's why Benson's concerned about the
fifteen percent of WU freshman who chose to leave. He
wants to find a way to close that gap.

Speaker 23 (01:10:12):
Maybe it was for finances, maybe they transfer somewhere else,
but that is a number of works to continue to
focus on because it is a key indicator of how
well you're doing in that all important freshman year.

Speaker 18 (01:10:23):
Nevertheless, the eighty five percent of freshmen who did stay
is a new record, and Benson said that retention rate's
been improving in recent years. He'd like to get it
to one hundred percent. State Superintendent of Schools Michelle Blatt
is in Raleigh County this hour black visiting Stanford and
Mabscott Elementary Schools alongside Raleig County school officials. They're celebrating
those two schools for the improvement of test scores in

(01:10:43):
recent years. You're listening to Metro News for forty years.
The Boys of West Virginia.

Speaker 7 (01:10:48):
Well High School football Playoffs are here. Four classes, sixty
four teams. Four champions will be crowned. Download the metro
is television app to watch all the postseason's most exciting
matchup and some of the state's top players.

Speaker 5 (01:11:01):
Each week.

Speaker 7 (01:11:02):
The West Virginia High School football Playoffs are brought to
you by the Thrasher Group, Marshall University, and the Mountaineer
Challenge Academy.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Stream the action live on Metro News Television.

Speaker 7 (01:11:11):
Available on mobile, Roku, fire TV, smart TVs, and online
at WV Metro newstv dot com.

Speaker 19 (01:11:18):
Attention high school football fans, if you're wondering where your
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go to wv metronews dot com, click on the high
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(01:11:40):
Twenty twenty five Metro News Power Rankings are presented by
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Speaker 18 (01:11:49):
Jury selection to begin this afternoon in Kanawa County Circuit
Court in the trial over a twenty twenty three murder
in South Charleston, Judge Jennifer Bailey will preside over the
case of Tavion Jones, who is charged in the December
twenty twenty three slaying of Anthony Subven Lacey. Jones was
arrested about a month later in Greenville, Tennessee, and extra
dieded back to West Virginia to face those charges. The

(01:12:10):
thirty seven year old Suvin Lacy's body was founded along
to South Charleston Street. He had been shot in the
head from the Metro News anchored desk. I'm Chris Lawrence.

(01:12:37):
Three of four.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Talk three or four is the text line eight hundred
and seven sixty five eight two five five.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
That is the phone number.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Cittyet is bringing ultra fast fiber internet to more West
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is text line eight hundred and seven six five eight

(01:13:05):
two five five. Back to some of your thoughts coming
up in just a moment right now. Please welcome to
the program. The hardest working man in sports media. Joe Briccado. Joe,
good morning. I can barely can you sort of hear him?

Speaker 5 (01:13:24):
Good morning?

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
There he is. Go hey, Joe, good morning guys. How
are you doing? Joe?

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
Oh, I know what the problem is. Hang on a second,
I can fix this. Joe Ricado joins us from the
uh he's in the other studio.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
Well, thanks on the UH.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Hang on, Joe, let me fix this. It's going to
take just a couple of seconds. Do you know what
happened to you, j I.

Speaker 5 (01:13:44):
Think he's hearing us on eight second delay.

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
He is hearing us on an eight second delay. I
can fix that. It's just going to take a second
or two to get him up to speed. So let's
get a couple of text in.

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
Joe, don't change anything, just hang with us. Texter says
on the Hope scholar So, as a senior with no
children in school, I should receive a tax incentive refund
on the school taxes I'm required to pay?

Speaker 5 (01:14:07):
No, no, no, where do you get.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
That not what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (01:14:14):
You want to explain what you were really saying.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
So in short, what I was saying, e people, the
argument gets simplified as though if the Hope Scholarship did
not exist, all of that money would just automatically be
applied to the public schools, even if these students were
continuing to leave wherever they're going. And my point was,
that's not how that that's not the case. You still
have declining enrollment, you still have a declining population. So

(01:14:39):
if the Hope Scholarship magically went away tomorrow, but these
students were still choosing homeschooling or private schools or whatever
the case may be, you still have a problem there
because so much of the school aid formula is dependent
on student enrollment.

Speaker 5 (01:14:54):
Yeah, nothing new, and it's been that way for years.
If a kid goes to private school from public school,
that money goes in to the big black hole. The
county doesn't get it. Where does it go? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
We still have no idea where that goes. All right,
let's try this again, Joe, good morning, the good morning, guys.
All right, that's much better, much better.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Joe, big weekend, all kinds of stuff going on. Let's
start with the Mountaineers at Arizona State. It was a
twenty five twenty three game out in the desert, and
that will keep the Mountaineers out of Bowl eligibility for
this year.

Speaker 10 (01:15:24):
At four and seven. They've got a very difficult contest
to close out the regular season two weeks from now
against Texas Tech, and certainly this is one that the
Mountaineers feel they let get through their fingers. They're able
to get a couple of late touchdowns from Curtis Jones
Junior and Sincere Bowers to take a twenty three to
twenty two lead late in the game. Arizona State gets

(01:15:44):
a forty nine yard field goal with about three minutes
to go in the Mountaineers unable to answer the other way.
So West Virginia now at four and seven, and as
I said, difficult contest to close out the regular season
against Texas Tech, a team that is probably destined for
the college football playoff.

Speaker 5 (01:15:59):
Look Joe, to see that play, that interception, that's not
what beat them. You can't run the ball sixty eight
yards and win a football game.

Speaker 10 (01:16:06):
The repeated reference that Rich Rodriguez made in his postgame
press conference was if you can't get a couple of
feet or a yard when you need it, and he
kind of did some hand motions and gesticulated a little
bit to make the point. And the inability of this
offensive line and the backs to get a yard when
they need it really did hurt them in a number

(01:16:27):
of fourth down situations. And it's been a recurring theme
throughout the year. And you're talking about quarterback and you're
talking about some other positions, but I think ultimately, as
you're going forward in this program, the offensive line is
going to be the number one priority in where this
team puts its resources in player acquisition and recruiting, going forward,
But certainly you come out of that game thinking that

(01:16:49):
this was one that, man, you really could have had
and it would have whatever happens against Texas tech Man,
this is one that you could have built on for
the future if you're able to get that win.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
You can read the recap WDV Metronews dot com show
what in the world Happened Friday night down at the Greenbrier.

Speaker 10 (01:17:06):
Greg Carey could answer that best. He was there covering
the game for us and he's got two postgame stories
posted there at WV Metro News dot com. But I
think if you're Mark Kellogg, he summed it up best
in his postgame press conference when he said, you know,
I don't really know how to describe this or how
I feel right now, other than I'm going to enjoy it.
And when a team goes into a game and they

(01:17:30):
lose essentially half their roster on one sequence at halftime,
the Mountaineers having to finish the game in the second
half with just five players after six were ejected in
a situation around halftime, it's an amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
Victory what they were able to do.

Speaker 10 (01:17:47):
And you know, a couple of years ago, West Virginia
went to Iowa, and that was a game in the
NAA Tournament that was talked about forever. This kind of
replaces that as a marker for what this team can
do going forward. They're four to zero on the season
right now, but this is a victory that's going to
have huge ramifications for them going forward.

Speaker 5 (01:18:06):
Yeah, I love what Kellogg said. He said quote, I
couldn't be more proud of the resiliency, the guts, the grit,
all of the things that I think our team is.
That was very well said. My next question, what happens now?
I mean, they got to set a game out two games.
What's the ruling here?

Speaker 10 (01:18:19):
Still waiting on official confirmation on that. There's a possibility
that Jordan Harrison, who was involved in the initial altercation
with the duke player, may have to sit out a
game because her the reason for rejection was not leaving
the bench. For the players leaving the bench, they should
be good to go Thursday morning when the Matt Seners
host Appalachian State. Harrison status might be different. We're waiting

(01:18:41):
to see what the situation there is.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
All right, men's basketball takes on Lafayette tonight, and thus
we'll wrap up that five game homestand to begin the season.

Speaker 10 (01:18:49):
Yeah, it's a final game that the Mattziers will play
without chance more, he will be able to play in
the two games that they've got coming up this weekend
in Charleston, South Carolina, Lafayette coming in with a one
in three record on paper. This is the game after
a big win and the game before a big tournament.
So West Virginia's focus, you would hope, is at a
high level to secure the result early and get to

(01:19:12):
five and zero, and you're gonna be taking on Clemson
on Friday and another good opponent on Sunday in South Carolina.

Speaker 5 (01:19:17):
The Lafayette Leopards. It might supposed to be intimidated the Leopards.
I'm not intimidated, Joe. Maybe I should be, but I'm not.

Speaker 10 (01:19:26):
I can answer that question probably better about nine o'clock
this evening.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Sports Joe Bricado. He'll be over at Hope Coliseum tonight
covering the Mountaineers taking on Lafayette.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
Marshall.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
Football takes care of business, however, soccer. Yesterday UCF got
the win in the Sun Belt Conference championship game, and
we'll find out today, Joe, where Marshall and w are
slotted in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 10 (01:19:49):
And I'm not going to pretend to be a men's
soccer bracketologist, but if you're Marshall, you probably still like
your position based on where you are in the RPI.
To get a national seed, be in the top sixteen,
host an opening round or second round matchup. If you're
West Virginia, the lost to Marshall on Wednesday may keep
you out of that top sixteen. Again. We'll find out

(01:20:11):
the official pairings at one o'clock this afternoon and looking
forward to seeing however it works out. Marshall and West
Virginia learn their draws and know that they are teams
that have goals of making it to the College Cup,
as both have done over the course of the last
two seasons.

Speaker 5 (01:20:27):
I got to do a better job of soccer. I
need soccer, one on one. I mean, all the kids
are into it, my kids, my nieces, my nephews. I mean,
that's what they do nowadays. I never played it. I
gotta learn. I gotta do something, Joe.

Speaker 10 (01:20:38):
I'll be happy to answer all of your soccer related
questions to the best of my ability.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Thank you, and Joe.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
High School football Playoffs Heat into the quarterfinals this weekend
coming up? What was your takeaways from round number one?

Speaker 10 (01:20:52):
There were nine rematches from the regular season, and many
of those went according to the same script as they
were one side again games, but there were three that
turned over and I think we're I don't want to
say upsets, but they were results that not a lot
of people expected.

Speaker 1 (01:21:08):
Robert C.

Speaker 10 (01:21:08):
Brd in Class Triple A, defeating third seeded Fhairmont Senior
thirty six to twenty eight. Bird lost by twenty six
points to Fairmont Senior in the regular season. However, Bird
is able to flip the script and advance onto the
quarter final round. Class Double A, Clay County was dominated
by Rohan County in the regular season. Clay comes back
out and wins by the final of forty four to twelve,

(01:21:30):
and Dave, can I bring up the same Mary's game.

Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
Or oh, go ahead, it's face I have to.

Speaker 10 (01:21:34):
Ward County falls to Saint Mary's by thirty three points
in the regular season finale. Ward County goes right back
out and defeats Saint Mary's twenty seven to fourteen in
the playoff game. With respect to your Blue Devils, I
try to keep that as quick as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
It's tough to beat teams twice in the same year, Joe.
You know each other, you're and depending on how closely
you played. I know Saint Mary's and Word had to
play back to back weeks there.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
Sometimes it's just you have a little maybe too much
confidence on one side, and maybe the other side you
get a little more of a chip on your shoulder.
I don't know what it is. I just know it's
very difficult to beat a team twice in the same season.

Speaker 10 (01:22:11):
Yeah, in credit the Tigers, because the coaches probably had
to do equal parts of game preparation to find a
different game plan that was gonna work, but also get
their guys confidence back up after losing by a pretty
wide margin in Week eleven. To come back out and
win on the road and advance is very impressive.

Speaker 5 (01:22:28):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
The quarterfinal schedules are set.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
We have those posted for you over at Wvmetronews dot com.
I was gonna say it's fifty to fifty, but I
think more games are going to be on Saturday than
Friday this week, Joe.

Speaker 10 (01:22:40):
I think it's seven and nine, but pretty well splaced out.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
Yes, I saw all the trip away games have ended
up on Saturday this week.

Speaker 5 (01:22:48):
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
It just jumped out to me on the schedule.

Speaker 10 (01:22:51):
And there are some that host a Friday night program
at nine thirty on the Metro News radio network in
at WV Metro News dot com that are not necessarily
pleased with the particular development.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
Yeah, they like their Friday games. Does do Fred and Dave?

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
That's for sure. Joe doesn't care. He'll go anywhere anytime, right, Joe.

Speaker 10 (01:23:09):
See, this is where I kind of with all due
respect to Fred and Dave, it's nice to have the
schedule spread out a little bit because Greg Carrey, taror
Malone myself, this gives us the opportunity to get out
and see more games and put recaps on the website.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
So it works out exactly well locally here in Morgantown,
for instance, we'll be able to get all three county schools.
We'll get all of their games on this weekend because
there's games Friday, Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening.

Speaker 10 (01:23:36):
So work Huntington, yeah, yeah, University Huntington on Friday, Spring
Mills and Morgantown early on Saturday, and then Ward County
Clay Betel at four o'clock on Saturday.

Speaker 1 (01:23:45):
Look at this guy, he's got the schedule memorized. TJ.

Speaker 5 (01:23:47):
You know what I appreciate about Joe. He's he's always
half full. The cup is always half full. You've never
heard you complain about anything, Joe. You're bringing out the
bright side of the scheduling. I appreciate that.

Speaker 10 (01:23:58):
With all due respect, TJ. If you haven't heard me
complaining about anything, you haven't been paying attention.

Speaker 5 (01:24:03):
Okay, all right, well I'll try to do better. How
did are you a Jets or Giants fan? Oh?

Speaker 10 (01:24:09):
Boy, I'm a Jets fan, So I gave up hope.
I mean week one, when Chris Boswell hits a sixty
yarder at the gun to defeat you, you kind of
know that's the way the season's going.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
See, just got to bring up the right topic ToJ
that's all. Just got a topic now he's angry.

Speaker 9 (01:24:28):
Joe.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
Always appreciate you could, of course follow Joe and Greg
Carey as well as the rest of the mention new staff.
We have you all the way through the playoffs and
of course the high school football Championships coming up just
a couple of weeks from now.

Speaker 1 (01:24:39):
Down in Charleston.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
Joe always appreciate it. Thank you very much, Busy, tell
me your buddy.

Speaker 10 (01:24:44):
And good job not saying super six, because I've caught
myself doing that a couple of times, and it's kind
of like the swear jar around the office if you
say super six. So good job is saying high school
football championships.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
Thank you very much. Joe appreciate it. Thank you, buddy.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
Thanks guys, Joe Bricado, hardest working man in sports media. Again,
We've got to all of that for you over at
wv metronews dot com. Rest the show is yours. We'll
get your text three or four Talk three four or
eight hundred and seven to sixty five talk. This is
talk line from the Encove Insurance Studios.

Speaker 5 (01:25:15):
To care you here at the Health Game.

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):
We are here.

Speaker 21 (01:25:22):
From all of us here at the Health Plan. We
want to make your season bright. Whether you're wrapping gifts
or planning next year's goals, we're here for you. Happy
holidays and merry Christmas from our family to yours.

Speaker 3 (01:25:37):
Me Here.

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Metro News talk Line is presented by Encovia Insurance and
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Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
Texter says, hey fellas back in the day, I was
a huge football fan, joined the military and spent eight
years in Europe and fell in love with rugby. I
don't know much about rugby. I know a I couldn't
play it too rough. Those guys are crazy and be
I do enjoy watching it. Yeah, it's usually one of
those Olympic things. When the Olympics are on, it's one

(01:26:54):
of those events. I'll sit there and I'll I'll watch
the rugby matches.

Speaker 5 (01:26:59):
I need to learn more about the sport, but I
can see the draw. I can see why it's entertaining.
I was abroad one time, actually two times during World Cup.
I was in Paris one time when it was going
on in Croatia and the other And I gotta tell you, you
talk about people that are just obsessed. It woke me
up quick to how big soccer really is on a

(01:27:21):
global perspective.

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
That's on a whole other level. Dude.

Speaker 5 (01:27:25):
They were shutting down whole streets and huge cities. I
mean hundreds of thousands of people just bringing lawn chairs
and sitting down in front of big screens, and I mean, yeah,
it really whooked me up.

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
Let's go to the phones. Tracy wants to weigh in. Tracy,
Good morning.

Speaker 11 (01:27:41):
Good morning. How are you all doing?

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
Doing great? Tracy, what's on your mind?

Speaker 11 (01:27:45):
Oh good? I've wanted to comment about your host scholarship analogies,
which is basically correct. However, I think it's kind of
ignores the fact that a large percentage of the cost
of operating a school are fixed cost which do not

(01:28:07):
decrease at all. If TJ. Metos leaves Sherman High School
to go pursue his football career, they still have to
pay the same amount for utilities. There's still have to
pay the teacher. When one student leaves until enough students
leave where they can combine classes. They still have to

(01:28:28):
pay the bus drivers to drive the routes, and there's
just so many of the costs are fixed and your
analogy doesn't really apply to those fixed costs when you're
talking about losing the students to the scholarship.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
Well, Tracy, let me jump in there, and that's a
very good point you bring up. My point is just
simply that we would have declining enrollment. We'd be still
have the same problems even if Hope did not exist.
We would still be having the same problems of a
lack of funding, of closing schools and school consolidation because
we're losing population overall. But you bring up a great point,

(01:29:11):
and you're exactly right. There are fixed costs. It costs
x amount to run a school bus, it cost a
certain amount to staff of building. You're absolutely right about that.

Speaker 11 (01:29:21):
Yes, And you're right too, however, the cost of running
the school. And I was actually had to do early
retirement because my job was eliminated, and I kind of

(01:29:42):
feel like it was partially because of the Hope Scholarship,
because even though you're correct that we would still have
the same problem without the Hope Scholarship. It would Because
we do have the Hope Scholarship, more students are leaving
the public schoo Yeah, yeah, which will not be would

(01:30:03):
not be maybe if the Hope Scholarship did not exist too.

Speaker 2 (01:30:09):
Yeah, Hey, Tracy, appreciate the phone call. Thank you so much.
Appreciate you tuning in and weighing in there.

Speaker 1 (01:30:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):
No, I don't disagree with any of what you had
to say there, Tracy. Yeah, yeah, Yes, there are more
students choosing the option because the Hope does exist. But again,
that money would not just if students leave, that money vanishes.
We don't quite know where it goes the black hole.

Speaker 5 (01:30:29):
I guess you have a confluence of events there, and
multiple things can be true at the same time. The
big difference is we've been able to stay on the
other side of it for a long time, Dave and
artificially prop it up, artificially have more schools than we should.
You know, I come from Boone County, cole severance was
huge back when I was growing up, one of the
richest counties in the state, now one of the poorest,

(01:30:52):
and they're gonna have tough decisions because you don't have
the golden goose anymore?

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
Really that simple, and I'll go back, let's go all
the way back to Oh god, when was it the
Paul Hardesty made the comments and got all the controversy
started up. It's been months ago now, I suppose. But
he was right with the with the thought that we
have made these big strides for school choice with the
Hope Scholarship and have opened West Virginia up. But the

(01:31:18):
way we approach public schools has not changed since the
nineteen what eighties, nineteen nineties. Yeah, and it's it's out
of whack, I believe is the technical term. And we've
got to get public schools brought back aaps. We're on
a level playing field here that I thought Paul Hardesty
was dead on when he made those comments. However long,
you know, weeks, months ago, that's been.

Speaker 5 (01:31:38):
And I don't know too many business models the last
forty years without some kind of tweak.

Speaker 1 (01:31:44):
Not many, not many.

Speaker 2 (01:31:46):
We got to take a break, and we got to
wrap things up for a Monday morning. We'll squeeze in
another text or two before we turned things over to
David Amanda. This is a talk line from the en
Covid Insurance studios.

Speaker 13 (01:31:58):
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Speaker 2 (01:33:15):
Three or four Talk three or four is the text
line Texter says, we're a couple of generations now away
from the boomers.

Speaker 1 (01:33:22):
This has this was always going to happen nationwide.

Speaker 2 (01:33:25):
Our population is contracting unless you expand it with immigration,
and that expands the tax base and the economy. Reagan
saw this back in the eighties. Now our leaders want
to throw all the immigrants out. It's a race to
the bottom, says the Texter. You have a point there,
lost me on the second half of that text, But
to the textas point TJ. Yes, the boomer generation is

(01:33:48):
now aging and our generation just is not having as
many killed millennials, and what's after us gen Zers, gen
Ziers just not having as many children, less.

Speaker 5 (01:34:00):
Kids, people waiting longer in life to get mortgages. We look,
it's going to be a compounding problem, there's no doubt,
and things are changing and we haven't planned for it.
We haven't even talked about social security and what the
same variables are going to do to social security.

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):
This texture sends in a picture as several pictures of
his house Christmas lights plus govy outdoor permanent lights one
and done lights for all occasions, using dust to don
accent lights during the non holiday times. Thank me later,
says the Texter. I will take that under advisement.

Speaker 5 (01:34:30):
Don't tell me about solutions that mean I have to
get out and do something. Please don't, don't don't.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
But you only have to do it one time.

Speaker 5 (01:34:36):
I know, I still don't want to do it. I
still don't want to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:40):
It's talk line on Metrodames for forty years, the voice
of West Virginia,