Reading City Auditor Maria Rodriguez is urging City Council to scale back on the administration\u2019s proposed 9% property tax increase for 2026.<\/p>\n
Her recommendation that the burden on property owners be eased by using existing revenues and adjusting internal transfers drew backlash from city administrators.<\/p>\n
An elected official, Rodriguez provides a non-binding annual analysis of the mayor\u2019s proposed budget.<\/p>\n
She told council Monday that the city could reduce the tax increase to 6% without jeopardizing operations.<\/p>\n
The adjustment, she said, could be achieved by using at least $300,000 in interest earnings from the city\u2019s 2024 bond issue for the general fund and by reducing the general fund\u2019s transfer to capital by $350,000.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said city property owners are particularly in need of relief because they were already hit with a Berks County property tax increase for the current year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the city and the county are totally two separate government entities,\u201d she said, \u201cbut the county increased the property tax by 8%, and if the city increases the tax by 9%, it\u2019s going to be 70% of the residents of the city of Reading who are going to be paying (both).\u201d<\/p>\n
The administration pushed back immediately.<\/p>\n
Finance Director Jamar Kelly told council that some of the auditor\u2019s assumptions were incorrect, especially her belief that interest from the 2024 bond could be directed to the general fund.<\/p>\n
Those earnings, he said, must remain within the fund tied to the city\u2019s energy-efficiency facilities project because the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, allocation originally planned for it fell short of the project\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
Further, a reduced tax increase, he and Managing Director Jack Gombach said, would not adequately address the structural deficit, likely making future budgets harder.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would not present this recommendation as tax relief,\u201d he said. \u201cI would view this as you are kicking the can down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cost drivers will persist, Gombach noted, so lowering an increase for 2026 would only compound the gap later.<\/p>\n
The administration, he said, recommends council adopt the larger increase, which could be coupled with revenue and savings measures aimed at shrinking the deficit over the next few years.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez defended her position, saying her office validated the numbers for weeks and based the recommendations on available revenue and documented spending trends.<\/p>\n
Her other major recommendation involved overtime accounting.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez advised the city to create a dedicated budget line for police compensatory time, which is currently folded into the department\u2019s overtime.<\/p>\n
According to her review, the city paid out $1.3 million in comp time last year. But because it is not listed separately, it obscures true overtime spending.<\/p>\n
Separating it, she said, would give council and the public a clearer picture of personnel costs and prevent under-budgeting for unavoidable payouts.<\/p>\n
The administration did not directly oppose that recommendation, but Kelly said the city\u2019s overtime challenges stem largely from staffing shortages and overtime-eligible work that cannot be eliminated.<\/p>\n
Council members heard both perspectives but did not indicate whether they were inclined to adopt the auditor\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n
Council will continue reviewing the budget before adopting a final spending plan later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading City Auditor Maria Rodriguez is urging City Council to scale back on the administration\u2019s proposed 9% property…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,857,182,139,28,736,128,130,129,706],"class_list":{"0":"post-39660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-essential-reading","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-reading","14":"tag-reading-city","15":"tag-reading-city-headlines","16":"tag-reading-city-news","17":"tag-top-stories-reg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}