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Mayor Colombo: Use extra sales tax to fix city building

Council to consider resolution Tuesday

Damage from water infiltration is seen in the corner of the Finance Department conference room on the first floor of the Parkersburg Municipal Building. That is one of the issues to be fixed with $420,000 in additional projected sales tax revenue under a proposal from Mayor Jimmy Colombo. (Photo courtesy of Eric Jiles)

PARKERSBURG — City Council will consider half a dozen resolutions at its next regular meeting, including whether to allocate an additional $420,000 in projected sales tax revenue to repairs to the Municipal Building.

The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in council chambers on the second floor of the building. It will be followed by a meeting of the Parkersburg Urban Renewal Authority, which includes all nine council members.

Three of the resolutions deal with how Mayor Jimmy Colombo proposes allocating a $798,193 carryover from fiscal year 2015-16, while one moves storm water management expenditures from streets to sanitation, where Finance Director Eric Jiles says they belong.

The sixth resolution is a budget revision to reflect a contribution of up to $100,000 from the Vienna-based Spartan Foundation to upgrade basketball courts at City Park and add pickleball courts.

When Colombo put forth those proposals at council’s Sept. 13 meeting, he also announced Jiles had revised the projection for municipal sales tax revenue from nearly $5.1 million to $5.5 million based on returns for 11 of the 12 months in fiscal year 2015-16.

“When this budget was created, we had two quarters of sales tax revenue at the time,” Jiles said. “Now we’re a little bit more comfortable with what our quarterly revenue stream is going to look like.”

With that additional money, Colombo has proposed addressing needed repairs at the Municipal Building.

“The Municipal Building has reached a point where continued deferred maintenance will result in significant future losses to taxpayers,” the resolution submitted by the administration says. “The highest priority involves the cleaning, sealing, caulking and repair of the external panels and windows to protect the building’s foundation.”

Water damage is evident around the interior walls of the first floor, it says.

In addition, the money would update and renovate six bathrooms on the first and second floors and replace carpet on the second, fourth and fifth floors.

“You have a house, you have to take care of it,” Councilman Roger Brown said.

The second floor is the entryway for many people to the building and some council members have mentioned the need to put new carpet in there, Colombo said.

“They say it’s the first thing most people see when they come in the building, and they’re right,” he said.

Councilwoman Kim Coram said she would like to see the additional sales tax revenue used toward reducing the police fee, something multiple council members have discussed over the last year.

“We promised a fee reduction in addition to the B&O (business and occupation) utility reduction when creating the sales tax. This is our chance to make good on the promise,” she said via email.

Councilman J.R. Carpenter said he would like to see the floodwall fee — reduced by one-third in August — completely eliminated, then turn attention to other fees.

“And it appears that we’re having enough stable income to do so,” he said.

Under West Virginia’s expanded municipal home rule program, the implementation of a sales tax must be accompanied by B&O reductions. The city complied by eliminating the B&O tax on manufacturing and electric and natural gas utilities, while cutting the rate for retail and restaurants by 30 percent. That totaled about $2 million in decreased revenue, with the savings on utilities required by law to be passed along to customers.

When the sales tax was being discussed, then-Mayor Bob Newell said reductions of police and fire fees could follow depending on the revenue generated.

Colombo maintains it is still too early to make additional fee cuts.

“You’ve got to wait until the next budget so you have a few more months to build a history,” he said.

Colombo said fee reductions would be so small people would hardly notice.

“I think I’d rather put it where people can use it,” he said.

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