HB 2566 West Virginia House of Delegates · 2025 Regular Session

Relating generally to allowing the Supreme Court of Appeals discretion to create uniform pay scales for all levels of judicial support staff.

HB 2566 would transfer authority to set pay scales for magistrate court staff from legislative statutes to the Supreme Court of Appeals' Administrative Director. It directly affects magistrate court clerks, magistrate assistants, and magistrate court deputy clerks across West Virginia counties. The bill amends existing law to replace fixed salary amounts ($54,596 for clerks, $49,232 for assistants) with a pay scale established by the Administrative Director, while maintaining that these staff can still receive general state employee salary increases after July 2023. This change streamlines pay adjustments without altering current salary levels.
Bill status passed 3 of 5 stages cleared
Introduction
Feb 2025
Committee Review
Apr 2025
House of Delegates Passage
Apr 2025
Senate Passage
Governor
Introduced Feb 18, 2025 Last action Apr 3, 2025
Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Introduced Version Engrossed Version · 5 edits · Apr 2, 2025
MODERATE
HB 2566 was amended to clarify and standardize pay scales for judicial support staff across West Virginia courts, including magistrate court clerks, magistrate assistants, deputy clerks, and family court personnel. The bill grants the Supreme Court of Appeals discretion to establish uniform pay scales for these positions, replacing some previously fixed statutory salary amounts with scale-based determinations. This change aims to improve consistency and flexibility in judicial compensation while maintaining existing salary floors and increase mechanisms.
Scope change
The bill's scope expanded to explicitly include family court staff (secretary-clerks and case coordinators) in the pay scale provisions, and clarified the authority structure for appointing and managing various court support positions.
FISCAL

Changed salary provisions from fixed amounts to scale-based determinations for magistrate court clerks, magistrate assistants, deputy clerks, and family court secretary-clerks, allowing the Supreme Court of Appeals to set uniform pay scales.

SCOPE

Added provisions for family court staff (secretary-clerks and case coordinators) to be included in the same pay scale framework as other judicial support staff.

REQUIREMENT

Clarified appointment and supervision authority for various court support positions, specifying who appoints and supervises each role to reduce ambiguity.

DEFINITION

Standardized definitions of 'immediate family' across different court support positions to ensure consistent eligibility requirements.

MODIFIED

Minor formatting and markup changes from the original introduced version to the engrossed version, including removal of page headers and navigation elements.

Floor votes · House of Delegates Apr 2, 2025

How they voted

902
Passed · 8 other
Total votes 100
Apr 2, 2025
D Democratic9
8 Yea 1
88% Yea
R Republican91
82 Yea 2 Nay 7
90% Yea
Vote distribution
All Yea All Nay Mixed No data
Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions
15
Key actions
2
Committee
4
Apr 3, 2025
Committee
To Government Organization
upper
Apr 3, 2025
Introduced
Introduced in Senate
upper
Apr 2, 2025
Lower · Passed
Passed House (Roll No. 346)
lower
Mar 31, 2025
Lower · Passed
Do pass
lower
Feb 18, 2025
Committee
To House Government Organization
lower
Feb 18, 2025
Introduced
Introduced in House
lower
Feb 18, 2025
Committee
To Government Organization
lower
1 primary · 0 co-sponsors

Sponsors

Role
Legislator
Party
State
District
P
Photo of Clay Riley
Clay Riley
RRepublican
WV
72