MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Levy rates for the City of Morgantown appear to have remained unchanged for fiscal year 2025-26.
The Morgantown City Council unanimously approved levy rates of $.125 per $100 of Class I property, $.25 per $100 for Class II property, and a $.50 per $100 rate for Class IV property. Morgantown Interim City Manager Damien Davis detailed the rates to the council during their regular meeting Tuesday, which also included updates on locked-in federal funding for the Morgantown Municipal Airport that was later accepted via resolution by the council.
“It’s officially setting the tax rates for the next year, the rates haven’t changed, it’s the same rates as last year,” said Davis on the levy rates in comparison for FY 24-25.
According to the levy rate sheet released by the City of Morgantown for FY 25-26, the city is projected to receive approximately $4.53 million in tax levy revenues. This accounts for city property values of approximately $1.32 billion, which would accumulate approximately $5.3 million pending any subtractions for uncollectable taxes and allowances for Tax Increment Financing (TIF) properties. According to Davis, the numbers went through the state process ahead of the request for approval by the council.
“This is the final step in the process of approving our budget for the fiscal year 25-26, in mid-March we passed it to the State Auditor’s office, they approved it and sent it back to us,” said Davis.
The council unanimously approved the resolution that amends the Morgantown Municipal Airport Improvement Fund to increase contributions to the tune of just over $10 million. According to Davis, this accounts for just over $9.1 million in Federal Aviation Administration grant allocations for the Airport Runway Extension Project, with just over $1 million accounting for state and other contributions towards the project.
“The grants have already been approved, this is kind of putting them in the budget,” said Davis. “This supports our Phase 4 and 5 of the Airport Runway Project, $10 million in total for that.”
A separate resolution added in the days ahead of the council’s meeting on Tuesday related to a submission of a Congressionally Directed Spending Request, which the council approved unanimously Tuesday night. The request totaled just over $10 million and included requests for the Airport Runway Extension, cruisers for the Morgantown Police Department, and a contribution towards the Downtown Historic Revitalization Subgrant Program. The hope is that some changes to the request in response to the change in leadership in Washington will allow for the request to move forward.
“We are submitting for three projects, the Airport Runway, $10 million for that, half million for the Historic Downtown renovation and $450,000 for six police vehicles,” said Davis. “We initially had $1.5 million for 20, but we’re scaling these requests back, hoping that we can get them back again.”