State Regulations for West Virginia

Date Revised: 08/31/2022

Governing Body:

West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources | Office of Environmental Health Services

Department of Health and Human Resources | Bureau for Children and Families (for Day Camps)

License Required for Day Camps :
Yes
License Required for Resident Camps:
No
License Information:

Camps with food service must be certified by Office of Environmental Health Services.

Day camps must be certified if operating more than 30 days per year.

West Virginia Food Safety Program

Food Establishments, Title 64, Series 17

Child Care Center Resources 

Child Care Centers Licensing, Title 78, Series 1

Criminal Background Checks Required:
Yes
Criminal Background Checks Information:

(camps operating more than 30 days) must complete CBCs on employees.)

West Virginia State Police
Criminal Investigations

725 Jefferson Road
South Charleston, WV 25309
(304) 746-2178

State Allows FBI Checks:
Yes
State FBI Checks Text:

Available by contacting the state agency. The cost is $24.

Driving Record Checks:

Available at the West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles website.

Fee of $7.50

State Sex Offender Registry:

West Virginia Sex Offender Registry

Minimum Wage:

$8.75 per hour

Minimum Wage Coverage and Exemptions:

Covers employers that employ during any calendar week 6 or more employees in any one separate, distinct, and permanent location or business establishment, unless 80% or more of the workers are covered by the FLSA.

Exemptions: employees of children’s summer camps; those age 62 or over receiving social security payments; volunteers for educational, charitable, religious, fraternal, or nonprofit organizations where there is no employment relationship; employees of a parent, child or spouse; bona fide professionals, executives, and administrators; part-time employees who are students at an accredited school; on-the-job-trainees

Subminimum Wage:

Employees under age 20 must be paid a training wage of $6.40/hour for up to 90 days. Any business that has not been in operation for more than 90 days when the employee is hired may pay the training wage for an additional 90 days.

Overtime Pay Requirements:

1½ times the regular rate after 40-hour week. County and municipal government employees–compensatory time off in lieu of overtime pay (generally up to 240 hours; up to 480 hours for public safety and emergency response employees), but after reaching compensatory time limit they must be paid overtime. Certain premiums can be credited against overtime pay: (1) premiums for certain hours worked over 8 a day or 40 a week or in excess of employee’s regular working hours; (2) premium pay at not less than time-and-a-half for work on Saturday, Sunday, holidays, regular day of rest or the 6th or 7th day of the workweek; and (3) premium pay set by employment contract or collective bargaining agreement at not less than time-and-a-half for work outside hours set by the contract or agreement as the regular workweek. Overtime requirements not violated if workweek is longer than 40 hours under an individual or union contract, if the employee has irregular work hours and the contract both (1) specifies a regular rate of not less than the minimum wage and overtime pay of not less than time-and-a-half for hours over 40 a week, and (2) gives a weekly guaranty of pay for not more than 60 hours based on the specified rates. If employee agrees, overtime may be paid as follows: (1) to a piece-worker at 1½ times the piece rate applicable to the same work when done during non-overtime hours; (2) to an employee doing 2 or more kinds of work having different hourly or piece rates at 1½ times the rate for the same work when done during nonovertime hours; and (3) 1½ times the rate set by agreement or understanding, which has been authorized by a regulation of the commissioner as being substantially equivalent to the employee’s average hourly earnings, excluding overtime, over a representative period. Additional conditions: (1) the employee’s average hourly earnings for the workweek (excluding payments excluded from the regular rate) must be at least minimum wage, and (2) extra overtime pay must be computed and paid on any additional pay that must be included in employee’s regular rate.

Overtime Pay Exemptions:

Those employees exempt from the state minimum wage

Meal/Rest Period Requirements:

Meal period: 20 minutes for 6 hours’ work, unless employee can eat while working; minors-30-minute lunch period if 5 or more hours of work.

Student Exemption from Unemployment Tax:
Yes
Student Exemption Information:

Service performed in the employ of a nonprofit educational institution which is not an institution of higher education; (10) Service performed by an individual in the employ of a religious, charitable, educational or other organization but only if the following conditions are met: (A) The service is excluded from ""employment"" as defined in the federal Unemployment Tax Act solely by reason of Section 3306(c)(8) of that act; and (B) The organization had four or more individuals in employment for some portion of a day in each of twenty different weeks, whether or not the weeks were consecutive, within either the current or preceding calendar year, regardless of whether they were employed at the same moment of time; 

§21A-1A-17. Exclusions from employment.
(10) Service performed in the employ of a school, college or university, if the service is performed: (A) By a student who is enrolled and is regularly attending classes at the school, college or university; or (B) by the spouse of a student, if the spouse is advised, at the time the spouse commences to perform the service, that: (i) The employment of the spouse to perform the service is provided under a program to provide financial assistance to the student by the school, college or university; and (ii) the employment will not be covered by any program of unemployment insurance;  (11) Service performed by an individual who is enrolled at a nonprofit or public educational institution which normally maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and normally has a regularly organized body of students in attendance at the place where its educational activities are carried on as a student in a full-time program, taken for credit at the institution, which combines academic instruction with work experience, if the service is an integral part of the program, and the institution has so certified to the employer, except that this subdivision does not apply to service performed in a program established for or on behalf of an employer or group of employers.
Details.