ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk wants to increase the property taxes by 3.96%. He said it will be a small increase for residents that will have a huge impact on the city’s budget.<\/p>\n
But, in a 5-2 vote Wednesday night, the City Council said no.<\/p>\n
City Council Vice President, Cynthia Mota said, “I’m the one walking the streets I know my community and people are hurting, every penny counts. This is not the time.”<\/p>\n
Mayor Tuerk said if a slight property tax increase does not happen, over time the fiscal needs will snowball.<\/p>\n
“We have a responsibility as costs continue to increase at the city to find ways to pay,” said Tuerk. “You have property taxes and property taxes are a really fair and equitable way to ensure that everybody is contributing to the public good.”<\/p>\n
He said the just under 4% he’s proposing is not as bad as it sounds. “It would generate about 1.5 million dollars of revenue for our general fund,” said Tuerk. “Most city residents would pay a little more than two dollars a month in increased property taxes.”<\/p>\n
But some council members believe there no amount that is a reasonable increase, especially with water and garbage services increasing. “The only thing we’re asking is for the mayor to find a better way, so we’re asking for the city council find a better way instead of taxing the community,” said Mota.<\/p>\n
That “better way” includes tapping into the city’s reserves – which is over 40 million right now.<\/p>\n
“You’re generating less revenue, you’re increasing expenses in the future that would not mean financial disaster as a result of that, but it puts us in a position where we cannot continue to provide the level of service residents expect,” said Tuerk.<\/p>\n
Another budget vote is scheduled for the Dec. 10 council meeting. Tuerk said, “I will likely veto a budget that doesn’t increase taxes and that withdraws reserves.”<\/p>\n
He went on to say, “After that point we have work to do. I’ll be working hopefully not through Christmas but will be working through December to try to get this passed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk wants to increase the property taxes by 3.96%. He said it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,153,155,154,24231,18525,24230,990,14934,3553,24229],"class_list":["post-40077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-budget-vote","tag-city-budget","tag-city-reserves","tag-city-council","tag-cynthia-mota","tag-mayor-matt-tuerk","tag-property-tax-increase"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40077","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=40077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}