MORGANTOWN — In each of the last two regular sessions of the West Virginia Legislature, bills aimed at eliminating or dramatically altering employment-based municipal user fees have passed through the House Political Subdivisions Committee before ultimately dying in the House Judiciary and Finance committees.
That history was top-of-mind last week when Morgantown officials sat down with a delegation of state representatives to discuss the upcoming 2023 session.
Morgantown is one of 10 cities in West Virginia with a user fee on the books.
Utilizing the state’s Home Rule Pilot Program — which has since become permanent — Morgantown City Council voted in October 2015 to implement a $3 weekly fee for everyone working within city limits. That fee went into effect in January 2016 and is expected to generate about $4 million for the city in the current fiscal year.
Dubbed the Safe Streets & Safe Community Fee, the city allocates $1.23 of each $3 collected to city police personnel and equipment; $1.20 to streets and 57 cents to the city’s public works department.
In terms of the largest recipient of user fee funds, Morgantown Police Department personnel and equipment, the MPD currently has fewer officers than when the additional revenue source was implemented.
According to the city’s website, the department had 65 officers prior to the new revenue source. Earlier this month, Chief Eric Powell said 17 of the department’s 76 officer positions were unfilled.
While the relationship between city hall and the city’s officers has been rocky of late, the inability to recruit and retain officers is an issue faced by agencies across the country.
Conversely, city officials were quick to point out the progress made in terms of city street maintenance.
Prior to passage of the user fee, the city estimates it was on pace to take 112 years to pave all 110 miles of city-maintained streets. Now the city is a on a 15-year paving cycle and has 1,000 feet of new and replacement sidewalk in place.
“In the past, we were put in positions where we were trying to shoehorn things in and do preventative maintenance where we could,” Councilor Bill Kawecki said, later adding, “I don’t know how to express that to you in any other manner other than I am worried about what you guys are trying to do down south.”
Mayor Jenny Selin said another of the city’s Home Rule initiatives, passage of a municipal sales tax, is behind major upcoming improvements to the city’s parks and recreation amenities.
The sales tax took effect in July 2020 and is expected to generate $8.8 million this fiscal year.
Those dollars also help shore up police and fire pensions and bolster the city’s capital escrow and general fund budgets.
“It’s very important to the city of Morgantown and all the cities in West Virginia that normal streams of revenue that we have, continue. So, when people suggest one year or another that some piece of our normal revenue is eliminated, that makes the city of Morgantown and all the other municipalities very worried,” Selin said.
Based on information from the West Virginia Tax Division, at least 80 cities have implemented a municipal sales tax.
Morgantown, Fairmont, Charleston, Huntington, Romney, Parkersburg, Wheeling, Weirton, Chester and Montgomery have both a sales tax and user fee.
