MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The City of Morgantown is ready to move forward with an approximately $45.31 million city budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
City Finance Director Jonathan Furgison presented the proposed budget in front of the Morgantown City Council during their monthly committee of the whole Tuesday night, where he reported that revenues and expenditures were relatively stagnant in comparison to Fiscal Year 2024-25. Furgison reported a projected revenue for the city to be at approximately $39.41 million, a decrease of about $300,000 in comparison to last year (revenues were reported at just over $39.72 million) with a significant amount of expenditures reported for personnel. The budget also accounts for an increase in the City of Morgantown Fire Service Fee and a projected decline in municipal sales tax funds.
“Exclude any prior year carryover, even with the potential ten percent decrease in the sales tax and even with the one-time increase in our fire fee, we are still budgeting relatively flat and stable for revenues, overall for our general fund,” said Furgison.
In the proposed budget, the largest financial contribution for city revenues stems from approximately $27.2 million in taxes, according to the committee of the whole packet released to the public on the city’s website. In the breakdown presented by Furgison to the council, he mentioned that B&O (business and occupation) taxes were projected to be on pace with the previous fiscal year ($14.57 million), with the city also expected to be on pace with revenues from the B&O construction taxes ($1.55 million) and property tax revenues (approx. $4.75 million). The municipal sales tax revenues were projected to decline to just over $2 million due to an adjustment on a state level with liquor, hotel, and B&O constructions combined to total just over $3 million.
“We have been told to expect a potential decrease of up to ten percent of municipal sales tax where the state is now using the GIS data compared to the zip code data,” Furgison said.
City fire fee revenues are projected to be at just above $4.57 million as a result of the 15 percent increase that was passed by the council, with City Municipal Service Fee revenues projected to remain stagnant at approximately $4.2 million. An additional $1.8 million is expected to be collected from separate fire fees separate from the ones raised. Approximately $5.95 million from the previous fiscal year budget is projected to be carried over into Fiscal Year 2025-26.
The Municipal Sales Tax Fund is projected to have a budget of approximately $9 million for FY 2025-26, an $800,000 decline in comparison to the previous fiscal year.
For expenditures allocated for Fiscal Year 2025-26, Furgison reported that the most costly expenditure was valued at just over $25 million, which will be directed towards personnel expenditures for the year, a slight increase from the previous fiscal year. The rest of the expenditures were split through over a dozen different city departments, with the majority of them directed towards facility and equipment maintenance, which combined to be just under $16 million between non-operational and non-personnel operational expenses. The remaining expenditures will support costs.
“Our personnel really is our number one expenditure,” said Furgison. “Personnel not only includes our gross wages, but also our employee benefits, and it also includes our retirement, also, it includes our workers comp (for all departments),” he said.
In a total expenditure breakdown presented in the committee of the whole packet, the top three expenditures with combined personnel and operational costs included the Morgantown Police Department ($10.6 million), a category classified as Operating Transfers Out (approx. $10.1 million), and for the Morgantown Fire Department (just over $8 million).
Furgison also noted that there will be some expected adjustments that will be made throughout the fiscal year. While certain expenditures, such as the contributions towards the city police and firefighter pension funds from the city municipal sales tax, are expected to continue, there’s a potential that recent insurance claims that were a conflict in late 2024 could become an issue based on claims requested in January 2025, though those have expenditure budgets that have been accounted for in each city department budget. With adjustments expected to take place throughout the year, Furgison advises to expect some to be made in the near future once revenues are given some certainty.
“There’s still going to be results of the fiscal year 2025, if we have anything leftover that we can carry forward, that will be worked into that,” said Furgison. “And then we also have those additional revenues that could happen, when we do realize those additional revenues, we will bring those back in,” he said.