Upshur employees getting raise
BUCKHANNON — The Upshur County Commission approved the upcoming fiscal year’s budget, which includes a 3-percent pay raise for all county employees.
“The lower-paid employees will get a bigger increase than 3-percent because there’s a floor of $1,040,” Commissioner Sam Nolte said. “That will help close the gap a little bit.”
The budget was finished last week after hours of collaboration between officials.
“Carol Smith, our county clerk, Carrie Wallace and Tabatha Perry and us three commissioners, we worked every day last week crunching the numbers,” Nolte said. “Our elected officials have done a good job over the last couple years keeping the budgets in line and really, the raises are due to them being responsible with their budgets.”
Commission President Terry Cutright said, “I’d like to thank Carrie Wallace, Tabatha Perry, Carol Smith, Commissioner Nolte and Commissioner Brady for their hard work on the budget. Also, I’d like to thank the elected officials. Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
Prosecuting Attorney Dave Godwin responded by saying, “It’ll be good to get something out of the way we operated the budget. We don’t spend money just because it’s in the budget.”
Also discussed at the meeting was the cause for high gas prices in the town of Buckhannon. Commissioners reached out to the Attorney General’s Office, as they did several years ago for the same issue, to obtain an explanation or solution to the problem.
“We got a response from the Attorney General. We sent a letter to get their opinion on the prices, then they sent letters to several of the gas stations around town.” Nolte said. “Elkins and Weston both have Wal-Marts with gas stations, which tend to be competitive. Then the bigger gas stations like Sheetz will compete with pricing. This has something to do with why the gas prices are inflated in Buckhannon.”
Gas prices in Buckhannon are higher than surrounding towns because there is not competition that would result in lower prices, officials said.
“It’s a lot cheaper to go 12 miles out of town to get gas while you’re getting coffee or lunch,” Nolte said. “It is not good, but that’s where I think it is up to the gas stations to make that call for themselves.”
High gas prices have been a re-occurring issue for Buckhannon, Cutright said.
The response letter from Attorney General Patrick Morrisey states “…federal courts have found that following a price leader, whether the price goes up or down, is not unlawful as long as the competitors are not agreeing to set prices at any fixed amount.”
At this point, there are no actions being taken to address this issue, officials said.