Glen Dale User Fee Will Kick In Jan. 1
Emma Delk Trending
GLEN DALE -- The City of Glen Dale has adopted a city service user fee that will go into effect on Jan. 1 for full-time and part-time employees who work at least 30 calendar days in a year within the city.
Full-time and part-time workers in the city will pay $1 per week.
Glen Dale Mayor Janet Scott could not be reached for comment regarding the user fee on Friday.
Glen Dale City Council adopted the user fee on Nov. 12. Per the ordinance, the user fee revenues are "dedicated and to be exclusively utilized" for city services and public works projects.
"The City Council finds that such municipal services include, but are not unlimited to, police protection, fire protection, other emergency services, traffic and street infrastructure, maintenance, and improvement, water utilities, sewer utilities, stormwater control, curbing, sidewalks, street and other lighting and parking, among others," the ordinance states.
The ordinance defines an "employee" within Glen Dale as any individual who is employed at one or more locations within the city and is on their employer's payroll on a full-time or part-time basis for at least 30 days per calendar year.
Employers under the service fee include all for-profit and non-for-profit persons or entities and all local, municipal, county, state and federal government entities. Employers are responsible for withholding employee fee amounts.
According to a memo sent to Glen Dale Elementary School and John Marshall High School employees, MCS is required to deduct the user fee from MCS employees at a rate of $2.17 every pay period, per computation from the City of Glen Dale.
The ordinance states that the Glen Dale city council's intent for the ordinance is to fund municipal services in the city, as the council finds the city provides "significant municipal services to all individuals acting within its municipal limits."
The city has a "duty" to provide municipal services to individuals within city limits, "regardless of their residence status," per West Virginia state code. Therefore, the city council finds that this worker city service/user fee is a "reasonable system for fairly distributing the costs and burdens to all users, not simply residents, of the municipal services."
"The City Council finds that the imposition of this fee is in the best interest of both citizens of the City and all other users of the municipal services," the ordinance states.
The city, through its officers and officials, will make residents aware of the regulations for the collection of fees imposed under the ordinance. These regulations include setting the due dates for the remittance of fees collected and to be paid; setting forth guidelines for orderly collection and payment of the fees; regulations requiring employers within the city to withhold, collect and remit fees for their employees and any other needful regulations explaining, clarifying or supporting provisions of the ordinance.
Payment of fees not received on the due date shall be considered delinquent and past due and will be assessed a 5% penalty on the balance of the delinquent fees.
"If delinquency exceeds a month an additional penalty of 2% of the total delinquent balance shall be added each additional month thereafter," the ordinance states. "Such delinquency fee may be assessed directly against any employer who is responsible for collecting, withholding and remitting the fee of employees covered by this Ordinance. The City may waive or reduce these penalties after review and for reasonable cause."
Any fee and penalties payable under the ordinance will be considered debt to the city and will be the fee payer's "personal obligation." If the fee or penalty is left unpaid, a lien shall be created against the fee payer's real and personal property.