Wood County Sheriff Rick Woodyard presented his budget request to the Wood County Commission on Monday as the county is looking at funding county offices for the 2026-27 fiscal year. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

PARKERSBURG — Many county officials are looking to offer a pay raise to their employees as the Wood County Commission considers 2026-27 budget requests.

Wood County Assessor John Kelly, Wood County 911 Director Dale McEwuen, Wood County Sheriff Rick Woodyard and Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure appeared before the commission Monday to present their budget requests to the commission.

Although many of the officials were able to keep their budget requests close to what they were asking for last year, many officials stressed the need to be able to offer something more to their employees for the work they do. All of the elected officials have been asking for a 5% pay increase. Some officials also asked for more money in certain areas to help cover increasing costs.

Kelly talked about working in the private sector for 30-35 years and the public sector for 26-27 years.

“I have had a lot of people work with me and a lot of people who have worked for me,” Kelly said. “I think today the crew of people I have may very well be the best crew of people I have had work for me.

Wood County Commissioners Jim Hamric, Jimmy Colombo and Blair Couch, along with Wood County Administrator Marty Seufer, listened to budget requests from county officials on Monday. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

“They are phenomenal people. They come to work every day and they do their jobs. They go the extra mile if we need them to stay a little while longer, they do that. They do the math and the calculations that bring you the money. If they do their job right, you have money to operate this county.”

Kelly said his lowest paid employee makes around $42,000 a year. Many of the county employees are trying to buy a home, buy a car and raise a family. Kelly stressed it was hard to accomplish that on what many are paid.

“They do their job and they do it very well,” Kelly said. “If we could do (a) 15% (increase), they would be worth that money.”

Kelly acknowledges a 5% increase is “reasonable.”

He is also requesting an extra $10,000 for “extra help” and additional money for “data entry” where they had to get certain information compiled and to the state by a certain deadline. They had something similar last year where they paid their own people overtime to get that information in as their own employees are already trained and could pull that information together faster.

Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure made his budget request Monday before the Wood County Commission. All county officials are looking for a 5% raise for employees while Lefebure is asking for a little more in other areas where prices have risen. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

“Every one of them did their share and didn’t put it off on anyone else,” Kelly said, adding they are asking for an increase of $500 to have $3,000 available for training and education programs.

“The better they are trained the better they will be able to do their job,” he added. “The better they can do their job, the more opportunities we will have to bring in more assets into the county.”

He is asking for other minor increases to cover the cost of their record books as put forth by the state auditor’s office.

Commissioner Jimmy Colombo agreed with Kelly’s assessment of the employees the county has.

“They are solid and amazing,” he said. “They care about people, they care about the future and they care about Wood County.”

Kelly said it was the employees who made everything happen. He could leave and the office would still operate efficiently with the people they have in place.

Woodyard reiterated how important the employees are to the county, especially in his law-enforcement division and tax office.

“This is probably one of the best groups of people I have ever been around,” he said.

He is also asking for a 5% increase in pay for his employees.

Woodyard has also asked for some small increases to cover increases in annual fees for computer programs they use.

Their estate work has increased in recent years and Woodyard is asking for additional money to cover the work being done there.

They are asking to be able to hire two additional people for mental hygiene work. Woodyard has long talked about the need to change how mental hygiene cases are handled in the amount of time it can take a deputy off the road. He has been utilizing court officers and home confinement officers to deal with those so the deputies can remain on the road and handle law-enforcement duties.

Commission President Blair Couch said the mental hygiene system is very outdated and they needed state lawmakers to understand that and do something.

Woodyard said there was some questionable legislation that passed where a doctor could make the determination to “hold” someone for 72 hours but he wasn’t sure what that would entail and if someone would actually be held for 72 hours. He wanted to see the state adopt practices like some of the surrounding states have.

The sheriff also wants a budget increase for home confinement. They have 83 people currently on home confinement and they are all being monitored with GPS systems. Personnel are doing home checks, drug testing and more.

The county also talked about increases to the county jail bill. The county budgeted over $2.2 million last year for the jail bill, which the state charges to house inmates from Wood County in regional jails. Officials estimate they will have to budget $3.3 million this year.

“State legislators are going to have to sit down at some point and come up with something to help counties generate funding to help pay that jail bill,” Woodyard said.

McEwuen and Lefebure are also asking for raises for their employees. McEwuen expects increases in technology costs and utility costs as they are now in a larger building.

McEwuen said they need to hire two more people to be at full staff, which would decrease their overtime budget as more people have had to work more hours to cover everything.

Lefebure is also asking for a 5% pay raise for his employees. He is also looking at increases for printing/data processing in legal research. Computer systems are incorporating closed AI circuits for legal uses.

“This allows us to do the things we are doing a lot quicker,” Lefebure said.

He is also looking for increases in professional services, which have been budgeted at $13,500 a year and they want to increase it to $20,000. The line item covers expert opinions in cases.

Another area where the prosecutor has asked for more money has been the training and education budget from $15,000 to $20,000 as expenses have increased for those services.

His office is still looking for a prosecutor to handle drug cases, but there aren’t enough qualified attorneys in the area to do it. In some cases, civil attorneys are handling criminal cases.

In addressing the growing jail bill, he said they acknowledge it, but there are people who need to be locked up.

“We intend to try and keep them there,” he said.

Officials are also looking at adding an emergency services levy to the ballot in November that would cover ambulance costs for the county. There has also been talk about providing funding to the volunteer fire departments from that levy with the possibility of eliminating the county fire fee.

Couch has had preliminary discussions with officials at the WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center and they could be requesting $1.7 million to maintain ambulance service. Couch believes there are areas they can cut to bring that down.

“We are going to have discussions, but I wanted to complete this budget first,” he said.

Colombo wanted the hospital officials to appear before the commission, as a whole, and make a formal request so they can discuss what they need. He wants to see how other counties in the state have handled such a levy.

“It has to be done in an open meeting,” Colombo said. “It has to be explained.”

Couch said it would take a few years for the county to be able to put an ambulance service together and it could cost $25 million to $30 million, based on conversations he has had with counties that operate their own ambulance service.

“There is a lot of information to get,” Couch said. “I am trying to get the information so we can make an educated decision.”

Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com