Allentown City Council on Tuesday failed to override Mayor Matt Tuerk’s veto of the city’s 2026 budget, which it had amended to strike a tax increase that Tuerk said is necessary, but council and the mayor are at odds over what happens next.

Tuerk told The Morning Call he believes the failed override vote leaves intact his original budget proposal, which included a tax increase of nearly 4%. However, some City Council members and council’s lawyer said the veto leaves the city in limbo, with no budget for 2026.

The vote to override the mayor’s veto was 4-3, with council members Cynthia Mota, Ce-Ce Gerlach, Natalie Santos and Ed Zucal voting in favor and Daryl Hendricks, Santo Napoli and Candida Affa against it. Five votes were needed for the override to be successful.

Reached by phone Tuesday following the vote, Tuerk, who was not at the meeting, said he was “disappointed” that council failed to reconsider a compromise proposal that would have increased taxes but lowered an expected trash fee increase. However, he maintained that his original budget proposal containing a 3.96% tax increase and a $140 trash fee hike, will take effect Thursday.

“Our position as the administration is we are going to use the 2026 budget we presented to City Council because it is the only budget that meets all of the criteria of the charter, which is a balanced budget presented to City Council prior to the end of the year,” Tuerk said.

However, City Council solicitor Maria Montero had a different interpretation. In an interview following Tuesday’s meeting, Montero pointed to a 2019 Allentown voter referendum, in which 83% of voters approved a change to the city charter that prevents a mayor’s budget from going into effect by default without approval from City Council.

City Council approved the voter referendum after the city’s 2019 budget, which included a 27% tax increase, passed by default with the majority of council in opposition.

Montero said that the referendum means that the city will have no budget in place for 2026.

“That is a political question,” Montero said when asked how the city will move forward without a budget next year. “From a legal perspective, all I know is that there is no budget.”

It could be up to the next City Council to decide what will happen to the 2026 budget. Two new members, Jeremy Binder and Cristian Pungo, will be sworn in Monday, replacing Daryl Hendricks and Ed Zucal, whose terms expire at the end of the day Wednesday.

City Council in November rejected Tuerk’s initial budget proposal, and also rejected a compromise proposal from Tuerk that kept the tax increase but reduced the trash fee increase to $90, meaning residents would pay $690 for trash in 2026.
Tuerk proposed lending around $2 million from the general fund to the city’s solid waste fund, which would be paid back over a period of five years, to cover the cost of the city’s contract with waste hauler J.P. Mascaro and Sons.

Supporters of the compromise argued that it would alleviate the burden on the city’s poorest residents, while opponents maintained that they could not support any tax increase.

Council instead passed a budget without a tax increase, which Tuerk vetoed on Dec. 22. In an email to City Council, Tuerk wrote “the amended budget does not adequately increase revenue to meet the City’s rising costs, and we cannot jeopardize our financial health by using our limited cash reserves to balance our budget.”

Tuerk on Wednesday insisted that there would be no city government shutdown and that operations would continue as normal on Jan. 1, despite City Council’s failure to approve a budget.

He said that although the voter referendum removed the clause that allowed the mayor’s budget to pass by default, the charter does not prescribe how the city can move forward without a budget approved by City Council, such as a shutdown procedure.

“The municipal code requires that the city has a balanced budget, and this is a balanced budget,” Tuerk said. “There is not a world in which there is no budget.”

He said he would ask the new City Council to consider a series of budget amendments, including a $50 reduction in the proposed 2026 trash fee, a $100,000 boost to the city’s homeless services, and a series of job reclassifications.

However, Tuerk cannot yet put these items forward on a City Council agenda because the council president, who is responsible for putting together meeting agendas, has not yet been chosen for 2026. City Council will elect a president and vice president at its reorganization meeting Monday.

Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.