MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Monongalia County Commission will move forward with a budget for Fiscal Year 2025-26 that will see similar declines in revenue seen by other entities in the county.

The commission unanimously approved a budget of approximately $43.67 million, which reflects a decline of over $3 million in revenues in comparison to the last fiscal year. Despite a decline caused by a massive adjustment on a state level, Commissioner Sean Sikora announced on behalf of Commissioner Tom Bloom and Commission President Jeff Arnett that the county will still maintain coverage of health insurance premiums for county employees, as well as increase funding for the county’s agencies and constitutional offices for the fiscal year.

“It’s pretty impressive to have a revenue drop of about 7% and still put forward a budget that increases spending where we need to,” said Sikora. And kind of still have a very, very robust contingency account.”

According to the commission, the largest expenditure implemented for the county will be directed towards general government expenditures, which account for just over half of the FY25-26 budget. The second largest expenditure was for law enforcement, which accounted for 30 percent of the budget with four other large scale expenditures accounting for no more than five percent of the budget. This will account for employee and building maintenance for 60 county agencies, 51 of which received grant funding for the fiscal year as well as an increase in funding for the county’s constitutional offices of about 4.1 percent.

“General Government, which is about 55 percent of the budget, Public Safety is 33.38 (percent),” said Sikora, breaking down the budget expenditures spearheaded with the assistance of County Administrator Rennetta McClure. “Health and Sanitation about 2.15 (percent), Culture and Recreation, about 4.8 (percent), Social Services is 1.6 (percent) and Capital Projects is almost at 3 percent.”

Levy rates will remain unchanged, which will make it the eighth consecutive budgeting cycle in which rates were either lowered or held in place.

The commission also stated that the largest decline from revenues stems from an anticipated reduction in valuation Class III properties, which is expected to contribute over $2.5 million in the total decline comparing to FY24-25. This was tied to a state-directed adjustment to the valuation for properties with oil and gas considerations. This has resulted in a major fluctuation in property taxes that saw Class III properties go from a near 30 percent increase last fiscal year to a just under 11 percent decrease for FY 25-26. While no major services were affected, the commission did chose to no longer grant across-the-board raises as well as limit grant request to no more than $1 million per agency.

“Class III actually experienced a decrease in valuation of 18.95 percent, which caused an overall 6.72 decrease in valuations across all three classes,” Sikora said regarding the impact of the decrease towards total tax revenues for the county. “That number, in itself, represented about a $2.5 million decrease,” he said.

Despite the decline in tax revenues, the commission remained adamant that they would be able to maintain several caveats that were able to be used to support county offices in previous years. For FY 25-26, the county will continue to pay health insurance premiums for employees regardless of the $1.5 million increase in cost and eligible county employees will also still see wage increases of around 3.9 percent. With an $11.5 million carryover and a $3.2 million contingency fund, the commission appears happy with the financial standing for the county, despite some comers over near-term financial windfalls pending any more changes on a state level.

“I don’t want to say this is a red flag for the State of West Virginia and Mon County, but it’s a yellow flag that we need to be very careful about moving forward,” said Commissioner Bloom. “We are very fortunate that we are able to cover it, but down the road, we don’t know what the state is going to do.”

The projected budget is determined on rates of 22 cents per $100 of assessed value for Class II (owner occupied) property and 44 cents for all other properties in a municipality (Class III) or the county (Class IV).