MORGANTOWN — The Morgantown Utility Board has approved a spending plan totaling just under $37.4 million for the 2024 fiscal year, which begins July 1.
The budget is actually broken into four parts: Water ($16,130,727.69); Sewer ($17,191,876.09); Stormwater ($2,295,668.98) and Cheat Lake sewer ($1,779,918.18).
The lion’s share of those funds is generated through water sales ($15,510,212.57) and sewer rate collections ($18,951,876.09), including the Cheat Lake system.
The anticipated revenues reflect a 3% inflationary increase on customer water, sewer and stormwater rates starting next month. Those increases will not impact Cheat Lake customers.
This rate schedule was approved in 2021 along with larger increases implemented that year. It also calls for 3% increases as part of the 2025 and 2026 budgets.
The budget includes just over $3.7 million in capital improvement dollars spread across the four utilities as well as a 3% cost of living adjustment for MUB employees.
It also reflects a 15% jump in PEIA insurance costs.
“I want to remind the board that even with that increase, we’re still saving $400,000 a year from where we were prior to going into PEIA. So, it still proves to be an excellent deal for the Morgantown Utility Board,” MUB General Manager Mike McNulty said.
McNulty said the spending plan will also fund various initiatives, including the installation of cameras in all MUB vehicles.
“We are also intending to have a study on wages and our benefits. We’ve talked about in several meetings that it’s been difficult to retain employees, attract and retain, especially in our labor force,” he said. “We have a high turnaround, so we felt like we need to bring a professional in to guide us through this process to help us determine what strategies we could use to better retain employees.”
In other news, McNulty said MUB has received a check for $381,996.20 from Travelers Insurance to replace the blower unit that burned up at the Star City Wastewater Treatment Plant on April 6.
McNulty said the cause of the fire is still unknown, but Travelers has hired a firm to conduct an investigation.
