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Tax department closing 4 offices to save money

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia Tax Department announced plans Friday to close three satellite offices and one regional office in connection with state budget cuts.

A total of eight workers staff the four offices and all will keep their jobs, state Tax Commissioner Mark Matkovich said.

The closings take effect Sept. 26 at the satellite offices in Logan, Morgantown and Princeton and the regional office in Huntington.

“Consolidating our footprint without losing our valued employees allows us to reduce our facility operations costs while still serving our taxpayers and protecting our employees’ jobs,” Matkovich said in a news release.

The five workers at the Huntington regional office and the lone worker at the Logan office will transfer to tax department headquarters in Charleston. The lone worker at Princeton will transfer to the Beckley regional office and the lone Morgantown worker will transfer to the Clarksburg regional office.

It was easier to close the one-worker offices, Tax Department Director of Operations Danny Morgan told MetroNews.

“The satellites were low-hanging fruit to some degree. Because of that, assigning the staff to other offices, gives them the opportunity to work with other staff on a regular basis,” Morgan said.

The agency has to cut about $500,000 out of its current budget. The office closings will are expected to save more than $67,000 from eliminating rent, technology requirements and other office expenses, Morgan said.

Morgan met with workers Friday and told them about the changes.

“They were trepidatious about the overall situation but obviously thankful that we were able to just close the offices and retain the staff and do a reassignment,” he said.

Recent technology upgrades also soften the blow of the office closures, according to Matkovich. The website tax.wv.gov received a major overhaul last year.





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