MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Members of Morgantown City Council are continuing discussions on whether they should increase the city’s $3 a week using fee to increase the city’s revenue.
Council conducted a public meeting on the issue last week. Morgantown City Manager Jamie Miller said it was a good discussion.
“I’m really pleased to see that everybody came out and participated today,” said Miller. “I think an engaged community is really important as we move forward with decision making, I think this council workshop format is intended just to open up the dialogue of what options are out there and what could be out there.”
The city has seen a revenue drop of about $2 million in the past year. The user fee is an option to increase revenue. Everyone who works in Morgantown pays $3 a week. The fee, officially called the Safe Streets and Safe Community Service Fee, was first approved by city council in October 2015.
Morgantown business owners who attended the session expressed the need for other revenue-increasing avenues to be explored before any increases to the user fee get a vote.
One proposal discussed was a possible Student Impact Fee that would be implemented to account for the student population at West Virginia University for using the same services while attending classes.
“They had 10,000 kids that lived in city limits off of the campus property, and if they charged them $100 for each semester, that would generate $2 million a year,” business owner Kim Noble said. “There’s a lot of different ways to go, and we’re struggling down on High Street.”
Miller said no final decision on the user fee would be made without public input.
“Before we make any decision, I think we always want to engage the public,” said Miller. “So I love to see the community engagement and the feedback that we receive so that we can make the best decisions possible in order to serve the community in the best way possible.”