CHARLESTON -- It was late, and they were tired. But before the House of Delegates Health and Human Resources Committee could agree to adjourn, committee members had to put it to a vote.

The committee had on its plate a controversial bill that would have expanded the scope of services optometrists could provide. Dozens of medical professionals had spent the day in Charleston, waiting for the committee's vote. After holding a public hearing that morning, then holding a lengthy debate about an abortion-related bill later that afternoon, committee members were finally set to vote on the optometrist bill as most people were tuning into evening sitcoms.

Then came the motion to adjourn.

Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, made the motion, saying she was exhausted. Roll call was called, and next came the rare sight of committee members individually voting whether they were too tired to go on.

"I didn't think it made sense at 8:30 (p.m.) to bring up a bill people feel really strongly about on both sides," Fleischauer said. "And where we had been in committee all day, for seven weeks, I thought we should be a little fresher."

Such was a scene from the final days of the 2010 Legislature, illustrating what some argue was the session's unnecessary leisurely pace.

It was a session largely lacking in major policy initiatives, with state agencies asked to trim 5 percent of their budgets amid shrinking tax revenues.

Legislative leaders acknowledged 2010 had been a quiet year, but they said that is largely because it has lacked any headline-grabbing fights over policy. "Quiet" is not the same as "unproductive," they argued.

"You can't judge a session by the number of bills," Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, D-Logan, said. "It's the quality of the bills that you pass. We've got a lot of bills introduced, but not a whole lot of them passed this time."

Lawmakers were still debating which bills should pass as of March 10. It was certain that many issues still will face the state after lawmakers go home, and speculation already was circulating about when lawmakers would return to take up something that wasn't addressed during the regular session.

Among the challenges still facing state leaders:

• West Virginia is facing a $7.8 billion unfunded liability in other post-employment benefits (OPEB) programs for government retirees. That liability will continue to grow in coming years, perhaps to the point where it will consume any new revenue coming into the state. A proposed fix for the system was postponed because of differences between the House of Delegates and the Senate in how to address it.
• One in four West Virginia students will not graduate from high school within four years, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education. The state also has one of the lowest college graduate rates and the lowest number of residents with college degrees, according to the U.S. Census. Also, West Virginia's public school teachers earn the lowest average starting salaries in the nation.
• The state's prison and regional jails are overcrowded to the point where the state may need to build a costly new prison in the near future, according to a recommendation made by special commission appointed by Gov. Joe Manchin last year. Another, less costly suggestion included revisiting state law to allow for more lenient sentences for nonviolent crimes, a view echoed in a recent report by the West Virginia Law Institute. Republicans criticized the suggestion as being soft on crime, and lawmakers spent much of the session increasing penalties instead of reducing them.
• West Virginia also is struggling with some of the highest drug-use rates in the nation, particularly tobacco and prescription drug abuse. The state generally spends fewer dollars on substance abuse programs than recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Proposals to raise beer and tobacco taxes to pay for treatment programs garnered little support, and Delegate Don Perdue, D-Wayne, scaled back his plan to tap into excess Medicaid funds for that money after it appeared those funds may be needed for other things.
• West Virginians also have the worst dental health in the nation. A lack of funding killed two bills creating an office of oral health to oversee state-run dental health improvement programs. A proposal to require children to have dental exams before attending public school is still before lawmakers.
• The state's unemployment rate topped 10 percent in January, the first time it has exceeded the national rate since the current recession began. That burden is falling hard on the unemployment fund, which could go broke before the end of the year if the economy doesn't turn around. If the fund were to go bankrupt, state leaders might need to direct other tax revenue into it, raise taxes or have the federal government loan West Virginia the money with at interest rate of perhaps 4.5 percent or higher.

House Speaker Richard Thompson, D-Wayne, noted there had been discussions about holding a special session to possibly make the changes necessary for West Virginia to be in a better position to receive federal "Race to the Top" funds. One could be the adoption of a law allowing charter schools, which is opposed by school employee unions.

He also didn't rule out the possibility of a special session to make changes to OPEB.

"We want to fix it correctly," he said. "I think we will continue to move toward a solution."

Thompson noted special sessions are not rare. The state held four special sessions last year, and it typically holds one at the conclusion of the regular session to finish work on the state budget.

Still, individual lawmakers and staffers privately said it was the slowest session in recent memory. The most criticism came from House Republicans, who, as a minority party, saw much of their legislative platform shot down over the past few weeks.

"Certainly it was a rather slow session in terms of substance, and I think those are issues we could have addressed during the regular session," House Minority Leader Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha said.