Parkersburg City Councilman Dave McCrady and Councilwoman Sharon Kuhl listen to residents speak during the public forum at Tuesday’s regular council meeting. (Photo by Amber Phipps)

PARKERSBURG – A handful of residents spoke about budget concerns and the importance of obtaining body cameras for the Police Department during Tuesday’s Parkersburg City Council meeting.

It was the first session since council approved changes to its rules last month that removed the requirement that speakers only address items on the agenda.

During the budget hearing prior to the meeting, Councilwoman Sharon Kuhl asked Police Chief Matthew Board if body cameras were in the near future. Board said it was something they were looking into in terms of budget and the department’s software capacity.

The proposed 2026-27 budget includes funding for dash cams on four new cruisers but not body cameras.

During the public forum, Parkersburg resident Stanley Cole thanked council for their hard work and said Mayor Tom Joyce was “actually doing a pretty good job.”

Parkersburg resident Stanley Cole thanks City Councilman Chris Rexroad and Councilwoman Wendy Tuck for their dedication to listening to the concerns of the residents during the regular meeting Tuesday. (Photo by Amber Phipps)

The agenda included a separate public hearing for people to share input or concerns about the budget, which is scheduled to be amended and approved today during a Committee of the Whole meeting at 5:30 p.m. in council chambers.

Parkersburg resident Ray Vannoy addressed uncollected sanitation fees from residents who failed to pay.

“If the variance is being used as a buffer for uncollected fees, I’d urge the city to reconsider that approach,” he said. “Residents in good standing should not be asked to pay the … debt.”

Vannoy provided a formal request for council to review his projected numbers for recycling services and contracts. He is among a number of residents who have spoken against the contracts recently approved by council for those services to be provided by private companies. A petition has been circulated for a referendum on the ordinance approving the trash contract with Waste Management, though City Attorney Blaine Myers said the legislation is not subject to the referendum because it involves the appropriation of funds.

Council voted 9-0 to approve the first reading of an ordinance updating salary tables for hourly, non-exempt positions like administration, maintenance, clerks and more. This will allow employees to be paid a minimum of $15 an hour, as proposed in the upcoming budget.

Councilwoman Wendy Tuck made a motion to amend the ordinance and postpone it until a comprehensive pay study could be conducted on the wages of the workers. She said the proposed table didn’t reflect the $15 minimum hourly wage.

Kuhl said the proposed document in the agenda only showed the current wages but once approved, they would be updated to reflect the increased rates.

“If we were to postpone this until the new employees had a pay study done, last time we did that was in 2018, it took about nine months,” she said. “These employees deserve their payments.”

Kuhl said the proposed budget reflects the $15-an-hour wages and they shouldn’t postpone any payments. Tuck said she didn’t want to postpone the increase, but wanted to make sure the table proposed in the agenda reflected what they were approving.

Ordinance six – reflecting new positions of a budget and grant analyst, events and marketing coordinator, and a land surveyor – also passed unanimously on first reading.

Council unanimously approved a $35,000 budget revision to allocate $35,000 in Opioid Settlement Fund money to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Parkersburg and crisis intervention training for local agencies like Westbrook Health Services, which serves residents in eight counties.

Joyce said $20,000 would go toward programming for the Boys & Girls Clubs due the growth of the program.

“Growth and increased impact with an increase of an average daily attendance from 89 to 200 youth,” he said. “They also saw an increase in school partnerships expanding from 14 to 21 schools.”

Joyce said he spoke with the director a month ago and there were substantial increases in the percentage of youth positively impacted by the program.

Councilman Chris Rexroad said with 15 years of teaching experience, he had personally seen the impact of the club on students and felt it was appropriate to further fund the program.

There would be a projected $15,000 to go towards crisis intervention training for Westbrook Health Services which serves residents in eight counties.

Also passing unanimously were the appointment of attorney Tyler Koreski and reappointment of attorney Andrew Woofter III as administrative law judges for the city.

Amber Phipps can be reached at aphipps@newsandsentinel.com