At its meeting Nov. 16, 2015, the Municipal Home Rule Board approved two more municipalities to join the 26 that have already been granted Home Rule status.
Home Rule plans from Elkins and Harpers Ferry were approved. With today’s action, Harpers Ferry became the first Class IV municipality to receive Home Rule status. In addition, the board approved amendments to the Home Rule plans of Bridgeport and South Charleston to allow them to implement a 1 percent city sales tax. The board will meet again Jan. 11, 2016, in Charleston.
The Municipal Home Rule Pilot Program was created in 2007 and began with four cities: Charleston, Huntington, Wheeling and Bridgeport. The initial pilot program lasted five years and granted those cities authority to enact ordinances, acts, resolutions, rules and regulations without regard to state law with several exceptions. Home-rule municipalities must still comply with the constitutions of the United States and West Virginia, and some state laws, such as criminal and controlled substance laws, are still off-limits.
Based on its initial success, the 2013 Legislature moved to continue and expand the program to 16 more cities. In October 2014, the Home Rule Board accepted the following cities into the pilot program: Bluefield, Buckhannon, Charles Town, Clarksburg, Dunbar, Fairmont, Martinsburg, Milton, Morgantown, Nitro, Parkersburg, Ranson, Shinnston, South Charleston, Vienna and Weirton.
On March 14, 2015, the West Virginia Legislature expanded the program a second time, permitting the addition of 14 more municipalities. The bill specified that four of the new municipalities must be Class IV, which is the designation for towns or villages with populations of fewer than 2,000 people. In September 2015, the Home Rule Board accepted six cities into the program: Beckley, Grafton, Moundsville, Oak Hill, Princeton and Saint Albans.
Municipalities seeking Home Rule authority may submit applications to the board any time, and there is no deadline to apply. The application must include a written plan outlining which state laws, policies, acts, resolutions, rules or regulations are preventing the municipality to carry out duties in the most cost-effective, efficient and timely manner, as well as specific problems created by the laws and proposed solutions.
The application, guidelines and a checklist are available online at www.wvcommerce.org/homerule. Also, a template is available on the website for Home Rule participants to file progress reports before the Dec. 1, 2015, deadline, and a list of planned board meetings for 2016. More information about the program is also available there, as well as applications submitted by existing home-rule municipalities.
