MORGANTOWN – A bill to exempt state employees from city user fees generated some confusion and consternation among legislators Wednesday afternoon.
The House Political Subdivisions Committee took up HB 2256. It adds two sentences to the section of state code enabling cities to charge fees for special services.
It says no city that levies a user fee may impose the fee on a state employee, and the state may not withhold the fee from the paycheck of a state employee who works in a city that levies a fee.
Delegate Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, told his committee colleagues that Morgantown’s $3 weekly fee goes toward street maintenance and police protection. The city attorney, he said, told him that about $1.3 million per year comes from WVU employees and other state employees, so city police could lose $650,000 per year if the bill passes.
And the full negative impact of the bill is uncertain, he and others said, because the two sentences are included in the section of code that enables cities to levy fire fees, trash fees and other service-based fees.
Susan Economou, deputy executive director of the Municipal League, said user fees help cities that draw a large number of nonresident workers, and cities that host events that draw large numbers of nonresidents. Those nonresident workers and visitors use the roads and city services and the fees help cover a portion of the costs of those services.
Currently, she said, eight cities levy user fees: Chester, Fairmont, Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown, Parkersburg, Romney, Weirton and Wheeling.
And she agreed with Hansen and Delegate Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, that passage of the bill could drastically reduce revenue for police and other city services.
The bill’s sole sponsor is Delegate Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, who lives in Beckley.
Morgantown explains its user fee on the city website. The fee is called the Safe Streets and Safe Community Service Fee. The $3 weekly fee is split three ways: $1.23 for police, $1.20 for streets, 57 cents for public works.
Based on 2010 census data, the city says, Morgantown’s estimated population was 29,076; of that figure, 12,160 work in the city. Another 20,487 people work in the city who don’t live there. Based on that data, the city estimates its annual user fee revenue at $4.5 million.
Morgantown says it implemented its user fee in in 2016 and has used it to hire 10 police officers, replace 20 vehicles and purchase new equipment for officers such as body cameras.
The bill has an amendment pending but the committee ran over its meeting time and had to adjourn to allow the next group in. They plan to continue work on the bill Wednesday, Feb. 24.
After the meeting, Hansen texted a comment during a texted conversation with The Dominion Post about the bill.
He said, “The bill would literally defund the Morgantown Police Department, and the city would have to drastically cut down on its road paving. It was a bad bill, and I’m glad we were able to get the sponsors to go back to the drawing board. I hope it doesn’t come back.”
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