Council debates indexing municipal service fee, sales-tax allocations and revenue compliance

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — During a lengthy workshop discussion about fiscal sustainability, Morgantown council members weighed three types of measures: (1) index the municipal service fee (MSF) to inflation, (2) revisit the 1% municipal sales-tax allocation and (3) invest in improved revenue-compliance systems.

One council member proposed adjusting the MSF to track CPI-U and to "catch up" with inflation since 2016. Staff said indexing back to 2016 would reflect a cumulative CPI rise of about 36% and would raise the per-employee charge to a figure council members cited (about $111 in one example). Staff said the MSF currently generates roughly $4.1 million for the city and suggested any indexing ordinance could be crafted to preserve existing classifications of users under state statute. Council members debated equity (downtown employees, transit users), collection mechanics (employer withholding) and political risk from the Legislature should the city raise or expand the fee.

Council also reviewed the city's 1% municipal sales tax (Article 733), currently split into four 25% buckets (parks ["Bo Park"], police & fire pension, CIP and discretionary). Some councilors advocated leaving the allocation intact to honor recent commitments and parks-bonding plans, while others argued the allocations limit future flexibility and asked staff to examine legal and disclosure implications before proposing changes.

On revenue compliance, staff and council discussed a compliance study and earlier collection triggers; staff reported prior work on fire-fee enforcement had identified about $700,000 of previously uncollected revenue, and council members supported targeted compliance audits and better earlier notices for unpaid fees.

Council took no final votes but directed staff to prepare materials for public engagement, to provide options for an indexed MSF and to scope a revenue-compliance study.