Published: November 19, 2008 11:20 pm      

New Mineral health, human services building ‘more efficient’

Ribbon-cutting held Wednesday

KEYSER, W.Va. — Though they have been in their new building since August, employees of the Department of Health and Human Resources were speaking the praises of the department’s new home during an open house Wednesday.

“We can find things easier, more quickly,” Janell Johnson, family support supervisor, said. “It makes us more efficient. It’s a morale booster that makes us all feel better to be here.”

The new building at 18 N. Tornado Way, near Keyser High School, had its official ribbon-cutting Wednesday, with tours of the various offices. This included spacious areas for the various components of the department, like Child Protective Services and Income Maintenance.

The facility also includes a family visitation room that Sue Radko, community services manager for the district, said is more welcoming for children and parents. The room can be used if they are interviewing children suspected of being the victims of abuse.

Radko said she felt the building gave the employees much more space, as the old building was 6,000 square feet while the new one is 10,000 square feet.

“We have room for growth here,” Radko said. “We have a few empty pods, which is helpful since we sometimes have people from regional offices come in. Now they have a place to sit, where they didn’t before.”

The building includes eight areas where staff can interview people for various programs, allowing for the department to be able to work with “more people, much more efficiently,” Dave Welker, assistant commissioner of the West Virginia Bureau of Child Support Enforcement, said. This will mean people will not need to wait as long.

Even those who have to wait, Radko said, will have a much more inviting atmosphere.

“People go into a nice, new building,” she said.

Radko said she felt that many of the people who visited Wednesday were “very impressed” with the building and its overall appearance.

Thus far, the only major complaints, beyond working out some initial bugs in the heating system, have been the after-school traffic when the high school lets out for the day and that the department moved farther from Keyser’s city center.

Radko said finding property and/or a building to suit specific needs within Keyser is difficult, which is why they chose to lease the one built specifically for them by Jeff Kiess.

Sarah Moses can be reached at smoses@times-news.com.