by Kate Shunney
Morgan County Commissioners and staff at the County Clerk’s office held multiple work sessions to shape a fiscal year 2026 budget in time to meet the state’s deadline for submittal.
“We’ve worked on this budget longer than we have in the past,” said Commissioner Joel Tuttle on Wednesday, March 26 prior to a vote to approve the final document.
Commissioners voted unanimously to approve the budget in the amount of $11,165,546 for the coming fiscal year, which begins on July 1 and runs through June 30, 2026.
Tuttle explained that increases in property value had led to an additional $318,000 in anticipated tax revenue for the coming year, triggering a decision by county officials to “roll back” their tax rates to 13.89 cents per $100 value. Last year’s tax rate was 14.3 cents for every $100 of assessed value. That rate is multiplied by the assessed value of any real estate or personal property in the most common classification – Class II property.
By state law, if a county’s tax revenue is expected to rise more than 2% in a fiscal year, they must either decrease their tax rate to offset the value increase or hold a public hearing expressing their intention to keep the added tax revenue.
“We want to live within our means,” said Tuttle about the decision to roll tax rates back.
Last year’s county budget was approved at $13.4 million but included around $2.8 million in carryover of federal recovery act money and other items not in the general county budget.
This year, the county has roughly $150,000 in ARPA carryover, said Tuttle.
According to budget documents, the Morgan County Commission dropped their office budget for the coming year by $46,933.
The County Clerk’s budget rose by $11,154; the Circuit Clerk’s budget rose by $1,501 for payroll only, the Sheriff’s Tax Office budget increase by $8,804, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office budget rose by $44,976, the Assessor’s budget dropped by $14,422.
Other big ticket budget line items that increased are the general courthouse budget, which rose by $479,301 to $2.278 million and the estimated Regional Jail bill, which rose by $113,902 to $500,000.
County officials also included a line item for the county’s new Wellness Center, with a budget of $127,815.
According to the budget, the county expects to receive $900,000 in lodging taxes during the coming fiscal year, up from $800,000 this year. Half of those funds go to Travel Berkeley Springs for tourism efforts.
Property values rise 8.6%
Morgan County’s property valuations rose by 8.6% over last fiscal year, according to a Certificate of Valuation prepared by the Morgan County Assessor’s office as part of the budget process.
The value of Morgan County’s real estate and personal property was reported as $1.4 billion on March 3, 2025.
In March of 2024, that value was $1.29 billion.
Of that $1.4 billion value total, the largest portion of property falls in the Class II category.
Class II real estate in the county rose in value by 11.97% according to the Certificate of Valuation. That class of real estate is known as owner-occupied property. It was valued at $943,836,047 for 2025, up from $842,962,216 in 2024.
Class III real estate in the county – property in commercial use or second homes – was valued at $409,239,757. That showed an increase in value of 2.55% from 2024 values, which were reported at $399,072,614.
Each of the county’s two municipalities – the Town of Bath and the Town of Paw Paw – create their own budgets based on the tax base inside their town limits and set their own levy (tax) rates in April.
The Morgan County Board of Education also independently sets their own levy rates to correspond with their fiscal year budget.
