The Monongalia County Commission estimates it will lose roughly $600,000 in revenue due to COVID-19 through June 30, the end of the current fiscal year.
The county projects an additional $890,900 in losses for the first six months of the 2021 fiscal year — July 1-Dec. 31.
“These are just the best estimates we can come up with. This isn’t a formal document,” Commissioner Sean Sikora said of the spreadsheet charting the projected losses. “This is information we put together for the West Virginia County Commissioners Association.”
Unlike the city’s budget, which is based largely on B&O taxes, the closure of non-essential business and the early exodus of WVU students will hit the county far less as property taxes make up the core of its revenue.
“We didn’t factor in much loss in property taxes,” Sikora said. “We factored some loss in where late fees would be waived, but we expect property taxes to be paid.”
In contrast, Morgantown City Council recently approved the initial wave of cuts to the city’s 2021 budget, totaling more than $3 million.
The county is operating with a fully funded contingency account in which up to 10% of the overall budget — $3.6 million in this case — can be held in reserve.
“Over these last three or four years, because of the cuts that were made — and credit to Sean, because he’s really going through the budget — we’ve been able to put that money aside in case there’s a need,” Commissioner Tom Bloom said. “We’re still moving forward because we weren’t overspending and we’ve been very, very conservative.”
The commission also credits its trimmed down budgets of late with a downward trend in levy rates.
The county’s 2021 spending plan will see its levy rate drop for the third consecutive year.
The $37.7 million budget approved by the commission for 2021 is based on a levy rate of 11.5 cents on every $100 of assessed property value (Class I). This is down from 11.75 in the current fiscal year and 11.88 in the 2018-19 cycle.
The majority of the county’s COVID-related losses come by way of hotel/motel taxes — $200,000 in losses projected through June 30 — fees collected by the county clerk ($120,000) and parks and recreation fees ($105,605).
While the restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 aren’t as directly damaging to the county’s bottom line, they’re still impacting business.
A new round of bond financing for the WestRidge development that was supposed to be in excess of $70 million was scaled back to roughly $27.7 million.
Tom Aman, who serves as the county’s bond counsel, said the money will be used primarily to redeem 2017 bonds held by the developer, allowing continued reinvestment.
“This is a scaled back version of the financing we originally set out on,” Aman said. Obviously that’s due to COVID-19 and the markets being in some turmoil and there being a lot of volatility.”
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