MORGANTOWN — Morgantown City Council passed on first reading an ordinance amending the city’s personnel code to allow paid leave for city employees who are foster parents.
While the amendment is based on a similar provision implemented by South Charleston, it doubles the paid leave time offered in that city from eight to 16 hours per placement and raises the maximum paid leave available per calendar year from 16 to 32 hours.
The ordinance also stipulates that the leave time is for placement of both non-relative and related or “kinship” fosters.
The measure was requested by Councilor Zack Cruze, who previously explained that he’s been a foster parent for about four years.
Deputy Mayor Rachel Fetty has also spoken of recently becoming a foster parent.
According to the ordinance, there are nearly 7,000 children currently in foster care in West Virginia. Roughly 49% of those are placed with relatives.
“That’s a big portion and those individuals often get overlooked,” Cruze said. “Especially when it comes to help and support and funding.”
Also on Tuesday, Council:
- Received a brief overview of the Morgantown Regional Bike & Pedestrian Transportation Plan, which includes hundreds of projects including 92 miles of bike lanes of varying configurations, 40 miles of new and repaired sidewalks, 120 new crosswalks and 94 pedestrian ramps across all the municipalities and portions of the county.
The city will now work along with the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization to identify priority projects — each of which will have to be individually engineered and funded.
- Approved a 2019-’20 budget amendment indicating an increase of just over $10,000 in oil and gas severance taxes.
City Manager Paul Brake said those funds will be split between the city attorney’s office for lawsuit settlement, fire/police retirees and a small amount for office improvements at the city garage.
- Adopted on second reading the replacement of the city’s paper zoning map with a digitized version compiled by the city’s planning office over a two-year span.
The change brings the city’s zoning map in line with the digitized tax parcel maps produced by Monongalia County Assessor Mark Musick’s office.
The only zoning change included in the replacement map is in Marilla Park, a portion of which will be rezoned from Industrial (I-1) to Single Family Residential (R-1A), bringing it in line with the rest of the park.
Council also approved that zoning change on second reading.
