People aren't paying their taxes in Kanawha County.
Or, at least, some aren't.
Kanawha County is facing a $600,000 deficit from this point last year (the fiscal year in West Virginia ends in June), partially the result of a decrease in money from personal property taxes.
Normally there's a slight increase over a year due to natural growth, according to Kim Fleck, the finance director for the Kanawha County Commission.
"There's usually natural growth because of appraisal values," said Allen Bleigh, the chief tax deputy for Kanawha County. "But I don't know that there's much growth in the valley right now."
The tax deficit won't have a direct affect on the people of Kanawha County right now, according to Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper. Rather, the commission will attempt to cut its budget and will not be issuing any raises to county employees.
The biggest area where people in the county will see a change is in funding for community projects. In attempts to preserve funds for emergency services, the county won't be able to give as much money to cities that ask for funds.
In 2015, the commission did help Capital High School build an indoor training facility for some of its sports teams, and it continues to help Camp Virgil Tate with its attempts to install a swimming pool. But the few projects that it supported aren't what they used to be.
"If you go back and look at our budget 10 years ago," Carper said, "You'd see that there are significant community projects."
Bleigh specifically pointed to the struggling coal industry as a source of some of the problems the county is seeing.
"There's some bankruptcy issues in that industry," Bleigh said. "They haven't paid taxes that they have in the past."
This year, the county has seen more a $400,000 deficit from Mammoth Coal, whose parent company, Alpha Natural Resources, filed chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2015.
Bleigh is wary that the commission may not receive all of that money. Even though taxes are among the first debts to be paid off, Bleigh said the county might see as little as 10 percent of the money Mammoth owes, which would be a big blow.
"You never know, when it comes to bankruptcy, how much you're going to get back," Bleigh said. "You just never know what you're going to get or when you're going to receive it."
But the coal industry isn't the only one that has struggled in the county.
"No question when you lose thousands and thousands of jobs in the coal industry and the chemical industry and the manufacturing industry you're going to lose money," Carper said.
Even though jobs from those industries may have declined, the number of businesses in Kanawha County increased between 2015 and 2016, according to the business industry growth numbers from the Secretary of State's office.
However, the rate of growth declined significantly. Where the county saw 1.97 percent growth between 2014 and 2015, this year it only saw .75 percent growth.
Despite the new businesses, if tax shortfalls become a trend in the county, the money could start to have a more direct impact on the people.
"It won't matter for Joe Schmoe in Amandaville until he calls for an ambulance and it doesn't show up," Carper said.
Reach Daniel Desrochers at
dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or follow
@drdesrochers on Twitter.