MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The City of Morgantown’s approximately $43 million budget for the 2024 fiscal year has been approved by Morgantown City Council.
The first reading of the budget was approved unanimously with minimal changes that address extra spending for the Morgantown Municipal Courts, the municipal election, the Morgantown Fire Department, and the city garage. The approximately $68,000 in increased spending will be allocated from the city contingency fund.
“It represents a total of $68,790 in department-by-department changes that have been requested,” said Morgantown City Manager Kim Haws said. “Funding for that $68,790 will come out of the general fund contingency,” he said.
The majority of the budget (approximately $26.6 million) will be directed towards police and fire department spending as well as operating transfers (details on what the transfers were for were not released to the public). Funds dedicated to the municipal court as part of the budget correction will reflect a staffing change for a municipal court judge to a contractor from an employee, which requires a benefit payout.
“It includes $28,790 to municipal court, the reason being that the court judge was switched from an employee to a contract,” explained Morgantown Finance Director Kevin Tennant. “That required a payout of his accrued vacation and PTO time,” he said.
Additional spending from the Morgantown Fire Department and for the City Garage will address vehicle repair and maintenance that was discussed before the budget was originally proposed in February (valued at a combined $16,000). The other funds directed towards municipal elections involve last-second spending to adjust for new polling locations and for increased costs for voting machines.
“To the elections department, there was a required mailing due to a change in a voting location, and also additional costs for the voting machines, which went up very significantly,” said Tennant.
Tennant stated that he expects other minor changes to be made to the city budget when Monongalia County officials release the projected city tax revenues. Currently estimated at $26.3 million, the tax revenues would account for over half of the city budget, with $10.1 million estimated revenues to come from charges for services (sales tax, municipal service fee, etc). Updated revenue numbers are expected to be released within the next couple of months.
“We received the certificate evaluation today from the county,” said Tennant. “So we can now update the property tax numbers and get those finalized, and we’ll have those to you for the second reading on the 21st (of March),” he said.