MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Morgantown city councilors approved the first reading of the FY 2021-22 budget with a unanimous vote.
The $38 million budget includes a $4.1 million carry over, a $1 million contingency fund and represents a 3.3 percent decrease from the previous year.
There will be no cost-of-living increase, a part-time position is removed from the Finance Department, a Code Enforcement officer is eliminated and an IT position in the Finance Department will also be reclassified. The budget also adds a Street Outreach Coordinator to work in the police department and a traffic engineer in the Engineering Department.
There are some revenue items like property tax that are being dialed in as figures come in from the assessor’s office.
“We received a certificate of valuation from the County Assessor that calculated the levy rates,” Morgantown city manager Kim Haws said,” The approximate increase in property tax revenues for the upcoming fiscal year is about $265,000.”
Haws noted there are boards and commissions that either have no budget or have made no budget request for the fiscal year. Council would the flexibility of the $1 million dollar contingency fund to keep those efforts moving forward if a project came before council or the city manager.
“One of the reasons we have such a large contingency is because it gives city council an opportunity to control those contingency funds and make them available for projects that arise,” Haws said.
Haws and councilor Bill Kawecki met with the West Virginia Municipal League to discuss strategies regard the effort to erase user fess by the state legislature. Haws said the legislature would have to provide ample notice before taking the user fees away from the nine communities in the state with them.
Although healthcare cost remain largely flat there will be increase in pension expense.
“A 1.2 percent COLA adjustment will need to be included in our pensions for FY 2022,” Haws said,” To be able to account for inflation and other factors.”
The FY 22 budget also includes a $100,000 line item for downtown initiatives. According to Haws, that could be facade work or other downtown projects. Fourth Ward councilor Jenny Selin requested a sum of up to $75,000 to fund similar efforts on the waterfront or in the Wharf District.
“Should I particular project come to fruition and need immediate attention we’ll have the flexibility to work with that group or commission to fund that project,” Haws said.
Mayor Ron Dulaney commented on the organized and timely preparation of the budget document. The work started back in December and included a work session in January and the first formal review in February.
“I appreciate the fact that back in the first week of December council had an opprotunity to share with the administeration what some our indivdual proporities were within our overarching planning objectives ,” Dulaney said,” I think that very useful.”
The second reading of the budget ordinance will be March 16.