First enacted in 2004 and raised in 2008, Charleston's city service fee - or user fee, as it's known colloquially - has been one of the more controversial aspects of city government.
Currently set at $2, the fee is charged weekly to anyone who works in city limits, regardless of residency.
City law states the user fee is designated for "police protection and street maintenance and public works projects related thereto, and any costs related to the imposition and processing of this fee."
"The ordinance is more than asphalt and police officers," Finance Director Joe Estep said.
Supporters have said the fee is necessary to help fund city services, especially in light of the thousands of workers who commute into Charleston each day, putting additional strain on those resources.
Opponents say the fee is essentially "taxation without representation" for those employed in the city but who live outside city limits.
But Charleston's user fee has survived court challenges, and in 2006 city voters affirmed the fee in a special election by a 3-to-1 margin.
On Monday, Charleston council members will discuss and potentially vote on hiking the user fee to $2.50 in January and then to $3 in 2020.
The sponsor of the increase, Councilman Ed Talkington, has said the fee is needed to offset higher expenses for paving and the city police department.
But how does the fee pay for those things, and how does it fit into the budget?
For the current fiscal year, the user fee is budgeted to bring in $5.5 million in revenue.
Of that, $1.65 million is sent to the city's capital projects fund, which is dedicated for street paving and other transportation infrastructure like retaining walls.
But the rest of that money - about $3.85 million - isn't directly deposited in a separate account.
Instead, the rest of the user fee is lumped into the city's general fund, with the intent of offsetting combined operational expenses of the police, traffic engineering, engineering and street departments. Together, those departments cost more than $28 million of the city's $89 million budget.
"People want to know how it's spent," Estep said. "It just doesn't work that way."
If the user fee were to be raised, council would need to pass a budget amendment raising the allocation to one or more city departments as allowed by city law.
For example, if a 50-cent increase in the user fee is projected to generate $1.375 million, then the police, street or traffic department budgets could increase to an amount equal to the new user fee revenue.
As time has passed and inflation has increased, the $2 fee in 2015 doesn't pay for the same amount of service the $2 fee paid for in 2008.
City Engineer Chris Knox provided city records that show the cost of paving alone has gone up more than 14 percent since 2008 and nearly 54 percent since 2004.
At current funding rates, the city is on a 26-year repaving cycle for city streets.
At the same time costs have gone up, user fee revenue has been flat.
Since 2009, the first full year of the $2 user fee, revenue has ranged from about $5.38 million to about $5.5 million annually.
That means the number of jobs in the city has also been relatively consistent, with around 52,000 fee-paying employees in the city over the last five years.
Charleston is not the only West Virginia city with a user fee, nor is it the city with the highest fee.
Other cities include Huntington, which charges $3; Parkersburg, which charges $2.50; and Weirton, which charges $2. Fairmont charges $2 per week to non-residents, while residents pay an $8.67 monthly fee on their city fee bill.
Cities and counties in some states are permitted to charge local income tax, but such a tax is not allowed in West Virginia.
Contact writer Matt Murphy at 304-348-4817 or matt.murphy@dailymailwv.com. Follow him on Twitter @DMLocalGov.