Photo by Emma Delk Marshall County Schools Superintendent Shelby Haines said the county was prepared for the decrease in levy revenue for the 2026 fiscal year during Tuesday’s board of education meeting.

Marshall County Schools has set $70 million in expenditures aside in their 2024-25 budget to fund future projects through a spike in revenue from property taxes collected from oil and gas companies last year.

MCS’s total revenue in FY 2025 was approximately $172 million, coupled with a $50 million carryover from FY 2024, for a total budget of approximately $222 million.

The most significant increase in revenue for MCS for FY 2025 came in the form of an increase in property taxes collected from approximately $89 million to $138 million for FY 2024 and FY 2025, respectively. Marshall County Assessor Eric Buzzard attributed the approximately $49 million increase to an influx in property taxes collected from oil and gas companies in the county.

Buzzard noted that a large contributor to the property tax increase was the Class III Taxes collected from oil and gas companies, which includes equipment used while constructing plants, such as bulldozers.

“Now that these oil and gas plants have been built, a lot of these contracting companies have since moved out – the ones that had 30 bulldozers, for example,” Buzzard said. “That’s where we saw a little deduction [in property tax revenues] this year [FY 2026], but whenever it was booming and companies had all their equipment here, that’s what we assessed them for.”

Buzzard noted that property tax revenues should stabilize for the county, as there are no more large influxes of revenue from oil and gas plants on the horizon.

“We had some years where we were $6 to $7 billion ahead [in assessed value for the county], but that’s when all the equipment and workers were here,” Buzzard said. “It’s stabilizing out and more in line of what we can expect for the future, so we picked up around $2 to $3 billion in assessed value through what the oil and gas industry brought to our county.”

Marshall County Schools will see an approximately $45 million reduction in property tax revenues for FY 2026, in part due to the decline in business from oil and gas plants in the county. While this revenue deduction is large, Superintendent Shelby Haines noted that the property taxes for FY 2026 of approximately $93.6 million are similar to the property tax revenues for FY 2024 of approximately $89 million.

During a late March Marshall County Schools Board of Education meeting, board members unanimously approved submitting the tax levy rate of 82% for 2025-26, the same rate as the year prior, to the State Tax Commissioner and the State Board of Education. Haines noted that the county still had the “lowest levy rate in the Northern Panhandle.”

“The board decided to continue to hold that levy rate where it is while we wait to see how all these changes in the local economics start to settle because there’s a little fluctuation,” Haines said. “We want to wait to see how this all comes out in the long run.”

Treasurer Nan Hartley said they anticipated the revenue decrease for FY 2026, noting that Buzzard and MCS staff were aware that FY 2025 was “an exception” when it came to the significant increase in property taxes collected.

MCS has budgeted $70 million as “Reserve[d] for Contingencies” for FY 2025. Haines said this funding will be used for future construction projects, including building the Benwood-McMechen Elementary School and the John Marshall Aquatic Center.

“We had extra funds that came in last year that were able to grow the reserve for contingencies for some of these other projects that we have on the docket,” Haines said. “Based on levy approval, that money goes and gets put there [for the projects].”

Hartley noted the importance of setting aside this funding for the future. She said the county could not budget funding for projects for FY 2025 that would not be completed in the year.

Hartley added that MCS was “saving every year,” including rolling over $50 million in funding from FY 2024 to FY 2025. She said the $70 million reserved this year was just a larger-than-typical amount saved for next year, with MCS continuing to invest to move forward with projects they want to accomplish.

“You’re only allowed to budget in the year what you think you’re doing to get done capital-wise,” Hartley said. “We didn’t think we were going to get the pool done capital-wise this year, so that money had to go into contingency.”

Hartley said allocating funding from the reserved $70 million for the FY 2026 budget would involve examining what projects had been completed in the county and then “taking it from there.” She noted that funding from the reserved $70 million could possibly be budgeted for the natatorium for FY 2026.

Haines added that the extra property tax revenue for FY 2025 did not cause MCS to “make up new projects to do,” with the county continuing “business as usual” while setting aside funding for projects on the horizon. She noted that their plans for the reserved funding fell in line with the MCS Board of Education’s 2020-2030 Comprehensive Educational Facilities Plan, which was submitted to the WV Department of Education.

“The CEFP is reflected in the levy that the people vote on,” Haines said. “We have just stuck to that plan, path and timelines, and just put the money away to support the plan that’s already been made.”