Westover City Council on Monday unanimously approved a 2023-24 budget anticipating just under $12.4 million in revenues for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The spending plan reflects a continued upward trend in the city’s fiscal growth that’s come largely as a result of its physical expansion by way of annexation.
Most recently the city worked with developer WestRidge to annex just under 400 acres in early 2019. Since that time, a list of businesses, including Menards, Bass Pro Shops, Burlington, Shoe Carnival, PetSmart, Kohl’s, Ross Dress for Less and Home Goods opened on that property, now known as WestRidge Commons.
The city is anticipating bringing in $4 million in business and occupation taxes and carrying $3.3 million over from the current budget.
The budget also reflects just over $1.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars, which will be used for the city’s Holland Avenue and sanitary sewer pump station projects.
Since the 2019-20 fiscal year, the city’s budget has more than doubled, from just over $5.7 million. The budget passed by council this time last year was $9,877,302.
“The budget is continuing to grow and the process is working. We have a good staff who put all this together,” Mayor Bob Lucci said. “We’re moving forward and looking for it to get better every year.”
Also on Monday, council approved on first reading the first, and smaller, of two rate increases coming for customers of the city’s sewer services in support of the aforementioned pump station and Holland Avenue projects.
The increase will bump the minimum monthly charge for up to 2,000 gallons used from $15.78 to $17.18. Those numbers are all doubled for bi-monthly billing.
The rate per 1,000 gallons for usage between 2,001 gallons and 10,000 for monthly customers and 4,001 gallons and 20,000 for bi-monthly customers will climb from $7.75 to $8.43.
On the bright side, a report from the city’s project engineer, Doug Smith, indicated the all-in cost of both projects has come down a bit, from $10.4 million to $8.2 million, meaning the future rate hike likely won’t be as steep as initially thought.
Smith explained the cost reduction is because the force main that delivers Westover’s flows from its failing main pump station and below the Monongahela River to meet up with the Morgantown Utility Board system won’t need to be replaced.
Further, Smith said, state-level conversations have indicated the city will likely be able to get $2 million in grant dollars, leaving about $3.8 million to finance.
“Rough numbers – please don’t hold me to these, but just to give you some idea, that takes your rate increase, which was at about 62% down to about 30%,” he said. “Significant numbers.”
It was previously explained the second rate increase would come once the projects were significantly complete.
