The Inter-Mountain photo by Taylor McKinnie Elkins City Clerk Sutton Stokes, center, flanked by Mayor Jerry Marco, left, and First Ward City Councilman Rob Chenoweth, right, speaks during a discussion of the city’s 2026 fiscal year budget, which was approved during Thursday night’s City Council meeting.

ELKINS — Elkins City Council approved a $6.5 million general budget for the 2026 fiscal year, a 5% increase over the current budget. 

The proposed Fiscal Year 2026 General Fund Budget has expenditures and revenues balanced at $6,591,312. This balance is a 5% increase of $321,519 over the FY 2025 budget of $6,266,793. The new budget was approved by nine present council members during the March 20 meeting, as First Ward representative Cody Kerns was absent.

However, while the FY 2026 budget is increased by $321,519, it absorbs more than $400,000 in new costs “for a compensation increase for non-appointed employees, higher health insurance costs and the cost of the City Hall projects,” according to a memo from Elkins City Treasurer Tracy Judy.

“I’m just going to thank the admin officers for their hard work,” Elkins Mayor Jerry Marco said during Thursday night’s meeting before the vote. “They knock it out every year. I don’t know how many times you guys (the administrative officers) have met, but like I said, you’ve been very diligent about it.”

The city’s three highest budgeted revenues out of the 30 listed for FY 2026 are the Business and Occupation (B&O) tax with projected revenue of $1,805,000; sales tax with $1,500,000; and county property tax with $1,248,359.

The highest budgeted expense of FY 2026 is $1,804,169 for the Elkins Police Department, a $134,104 increase from FY 2025’s expense, which was $1,670,065.

The FY 2026 projected expenses for Elkins City Hall was also increased from $522,000 in FY 2025 to $700,600, an increase of $178,600. This is the largest expense increase in the budget. 

The increase for City Hall is in large part due to the ongoing HVAC project and renovations being done to the building. City Hall is currently closed and under renovation after it faced a sewage overflow incident on Aug. 31.

During council’s Jan. 23 meeting, Elkins City Operations Manager Michael Kesecker showed the Elkins City Council the suggested blueprints for possible City Hall renovations that could have a price tag of around $4.1 million.

“We’re looking at long term funding,” Kesecker told the Council on Jan. 23. “Long term interest funding through USDA. We’re looking at… tax credits for historical property that we might be able to utilize. We’re looking at other grants that we might be able to utilize. Block grants we might be able to utilize.”

FY 2026 expenditures for the Street Department will be $1,248,351, a $1,801 increase from FY 2025, which was $1,246,550. 

Per West Virginia state law, revenues and expenditures for the city’s water and sewer utilities must be managed and accounted for entirely separately from the General Fund, as none of those revenues, such as sales tax, may be used for costs of the Water or Sanitary Funds, and vice versa.

The City’s Central Garage will see a $12,469 decrease in its FY 2026 budget, with expenses reaching $172,831. In FY 2025, the garage’s expense budget was $185,300.

The Custodial budget for FY 2026 is $158,793, a $4,193 increase from FY 2025, when it was $154,600.

The Elkins Parks and Recreation Department FY 2026 budget will remain the same as their FY 2025 budget with $305,796.

One major decrease in the expense budget is for the Municipal Judge’s office, which went from an expense of $156,262 in FY 2025 to $114,400, a $41,862 decrease.

When questioned about this by Fourth Ward Council Member Andrew Carroll during the March 20 meeting, Judy explained that this was because the Municipal Court Clerk was no longer being budgeted with Municipal Court.

“The reason why that is, is before we had the court clerk used to be budgeted in with Municipal Court,” Judy told the council. “That position is now budgeted under me (City Treasurer) because she (the clerk) works the majority of the time for me. So all the wages are falling under the Treasurer’s Office.”

Other expenditures on the FY 2026 budget include:

Mayor’s Office: $35,730, a $2,000 increase from FY 2025’s $33,730.

City Council’s Office: $98,000, a $9,742  increase from FY 2025’s $88,258.

Treasurer’s Office: $325,700, a $4,000 decrease from FY 2025’s $329,700.

City Clerk’s Office: $251,700, a $28,951 increase from FY 2025’s $222,749.

City Attorney’s Office: $95,000, a $15,000 increase from FY 2025’s $80,000.

Public Works: $173,475, a $2,075 decrease from FY 2025’s $175,550.

Elkins City Clerk Sutton Stokes said the FY 2026 General Fund budget will be submitted to the state auditor’s office, where it will be inspected for compliance with state budgeting rules.

City Council will then meet on April 15 to finalize the FY 2026 budget and “lay the levy,” or enact the city’s property tax rate for FY 2026. Stokes said the property tax rate will remain unchanged.