SOUTH CHARLESTON — Critics of West Virginia’s new privatized workers’ compensation system need to retreat for two years and give it time to work before any serious tinkering is considered, Gov. Joe Manchin says.

“I’m satisfied with the progress,” he told reporters from across the state Friday at the eighth annual Legislative Lookahead, hosted by the Charleston bureau of The Associated Press.

Manchin covered all the bases when hit with a flurry of questions, but generally kept his plans for the 2008 session close to the vest. Nor was he specific about where he intends to spend a projected budget surplus this year.

Workers’ compensation has come under intense fire by some lawmakers ever since the Legislature agreed to privatize the troubled system, but Manchin defended the switch to BrickStreet.

When he became governor, he said, the government-run system was the state’s “Achilles heel,” with workers waiting just over two months to get checks after being without their customary income to cover mortgage and car payments.

“We had to change and we did,” Manchin said. “The system had no incentive to be productive.”

Once the change came, he said, West Virginia enjoyed double-digit growth, “and now all of a sudden, everybody wants to jump in.”

Manchin said oversight already is installed in the system that includes four legislators and it would be wrong to judge BrickStreet’s performance until 2010.

“Don’t worry about BrickStreet,” he said. “Let the market develop. I want to make sure there’s competition. I don’t want one or two. I want competitive forces so you can shop for workers’ compensation like you shop for every other insurance need you have.”

Manchin said the transition alone took two years, so an equal time needs to pass before any judgments are made; otherwise, the market could suffer.

“You’re going to scare everybody off from the get-go,” he warned.

After poring over BrickStreet the past year, an interims committee last month put on hold a proposal that would have compelled the insurance commissioner to notify lawmakers about proposed rules and policy changes in the system.

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Manchin said he intends to “invest” the surplus but wouldn’t show his cards until the State of the State address next Wednesday. However, he hinted that infrastructure would get a healthy sampling of the extra dollars.

He called it “sinful” to have West Virginians without safe drinking water and sewer services, saying thousands of residents can’t consume the water flowing through their spigots.

Manchin sent a message to counties that he won’t dump money to them without 100 percent accountability.

“They can yelp until the cows come home,” he said. “Get someone else who wants to be Santa Claus.”

And he decried the “entitlement mentality” that has prevailed for a long time in West Virginia.

“I can tell you one thing,” he said. “If you had a child 40 years of age and you’re still providing everything that child needs, you will not create a productive citizen for this country or this state.”

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Downplaying some who feel the business climate has a shabby reputation, Manchin pointed out Expansion Magazine ranks West Virginia eighth in the country, based on interviews with 19 million firms.

As for pay raises in the public sector, including teachers, Manchin said his administration consistently has matched or beaten the automatic cost-of-living adjustment provided at the federal level, but gave no definite figures of what he wants this year. A year ago, teachers got a 3 percent hike while correction workers landed a $5,000 boost spread over three years.

Manchin repeated his support for locality pay in the classrooms and said it was “no big secret” he would propose a pay increase this time.

On education, the governor indicated he was fed up with assaults — physical and verbal — against teachers and would take on classroom bullies in his State of the State message.

“Are you going to put up with the bullying that goes on, the teacher intimidation, where students are threatening teachers?” he asked. “We’re going to address it.”

Manchin touted some landmarks in his first term — the creation of 19,000 new jobs, major reforms in civil justice, such as eliminating third-party bad faith lawsuits, and the privatization of workers’ compensation.

On video poker, authorized by his predecessor, Gov. Bob Wise, he said counties need more autonomy.

“I think it’s been very hard on not just communities but families,” he said.

“It becomes a matter of convenience when a person can go to a grocery store and stop for five minutes and lose their entire paycheck. I don’t think the intention was to ever start a whole new industry. We’ll get a chance to revisit that by 2010.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com