MORGANTOWN — The city of Morgantown collected more than $10 million in sales taxes in the current fiscal year.
It’s the first time collections have reached eight digits since the city utilized Home Rule to implement the additional 1% tax in 2020.
Earlier this week, Morgantown City Council approved a resolution amending the city’s projected sales tax revenue to reflect an increase of $490,694.51 in the 2025 fiscal year, bringing the total to $10,090,694.51.
That number represents a new high-water mark for sales tax collections and an increase of $196,096.54 over the 2024 fiscal year.
“You’re more than welcome when you can come and you can tell us we’re not dealing with negatives, we’re dealing with positives,” Councilor Bill Kawecki told Finance Director Jon Ferguson. “To put things in perspective, this money is not just a gift, it’s pretty much allocated to various activities that we have ongoing. You mentioned the pension plan, but also I think it helps to take care of some of the employee health insurance that we had to dip into funds to cover, if I’m not mistaken.”
The enabling legislation mandates tax revenues be distributed in the following manner: 25% for recreational facilities and services operated by BOPARC; 25% for the purpose of reducing the unfunded actuarial accrued liability of the city’s police and firefighter pension funds; 25% for capital improvement projects within the city; and 25% to be allocated at the discretion of Morgantown City Council into the city’s general fund or used to supplement the funding going to the three uses listed above.
Ferguson confirmed that the additional revenue going into the city’s general fund would offset some of the $1.45 million the city “temporarily borrowed” from its general fund in January to cover increases in the cost of the city’s self-funded insurance plan.
While the sales tax revenues topped the $10 million threshold in the 2025 fiscal year, it’s expected they may drop by up to 10% in FY 2026.
The upcoming spending plan conservatively anticipates just over $9 million in sales taxes. If that number holds, it would be the lowest full-year collection, by a considerable margin, since the city implemented the tax.
The reduction comes down to the state implementing a more precise method of determining what businesses are located within a municipality, resulting in the probability that some businesses located on the periphery of the city have been collecting Morgantown sales taxes and remitting them to the state for distribution despite not being within the city’s boundaries.
Historical sales tax collections by the city of Morgantown include:
— $5,457,116.46 for fiscal year 2021. This represented two quarters of collections.
— $9,541,906.24 for fiscal year 2022. The city budgeted $6 million.
— $9,464,938.11 for fiscal year 2023. The city budgeted $8.8 million
— $9,894,597.97 for fiscal year 2024. The city budgeted $9.56 million
— $10,090,694.51 for fiscal year 2025. The city budgeted $9.6 million.
