MORGANTOWN — On March 3, Morgantown City Council passed a first reading of the city’s 2021 budget, which included a 10% increase in municipal fire fees. When the spending plan comes back for second reading on March 17, that increase will jump to 23%.
That was the major takeaway from a council budget workshop on Tuesday, during which City Manager Paul Brake laid out what is essentially a one-year stopgap to at least delay the elimination of 12 grant funded firefighter positions.
Brake explained that a 2,000 square-foot home currently runs $145 in fire fees if paid prior to Aug. 14. With a 23% increase, that amount goes to $179.
“So for the average homeowner, you’re talking less than three dollars a month,” Brake said of the increase. “Of course, proportionately, that affects the larger property owners and institutions and the like.”
The $1.7 million federal SAFER grant was awarded in 2017 and has funded the 12 positions on a diminishing scale the past three years. It runs out in November.
The grant allowed the department to add firefighters for the first time since 1968. Even so, the department barely reaches National Fire Protection Association manpower standards for single family homes.
The budget that was presented on March 3 assumed only six of the positions would be fully funded in 2021, while the others would not be funded at all. That budget contemplated all 12 positions eventually being eliminated through attrition, meaning as firefighters retire, they would not be replaced.
The increase in fire fees will bring in $435,000 to be added to the $93,000 left in SAFER grant funds for 2021. The rest will made possible by the city’s 1% sales tax, which goes into effect on July 1.
This arrangement will get the city through the 2021 fiscal year.
“We will need to revisit that again in 2022,” Brake said, explaining that Fire Chief Mark Caravasos is working on hazard classifications for fire fees that would contemplate things like industrial facilities or the storage of hazardous materials when calculating fees.
“It gives us some time to ramp that up and have a much more equitable system,” Brake said. “If we could shoot for maintaining at that level and integrate a much more equitable system to fully fund the fire department from all different risk factors that are out there.”
Deputy Mayor Rachel Fetty pointed out that over the past year, council has supported increased revenue to the fire pension fund, voted to continue overpaying fire and police retiree pensions due to a miscalculation and — following the filing of an ongoing lawsuit by the city’s firefighters — doubled paid leave for firefighters for each of the 14 civil service holidays.
To now ask city residents to pay more in fire fees — particularly following the pushback the city received over its currently paused annexation plan — is “very frustrating,” she said.
“We are being squeezed into this position by enormous entities that make millions and millions of dollars here, hovering, squatting right over our borders. They’re making millions and millions of dollars and they’re not protecting their folks at all,” she said.
According to information presented at the meeting, the last fire fee increase was 20% in 2015.
City Attorney Ryan Simonton said the budget can move forward for second reading despite the changes.
