READING, Pa. \u2014 City Council is preparing to vote on a plan that will determine how the City of Reading pays for core services like police, fire, and public works, and whether the city can avoid layoffs in the process.<\/p>\n
The proposed 2026 budget includes a 9% property tax increase.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoughly 9% increase, and that includes the property tax,\u201d said Managing Director Jack Gombach. \u201cOur main driver of cost is personnel. It’s people. It’s our employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
City officials say the increase would cost the average homeowner about $163 per year and would generate about $1.8 million in new revenue. However, that still does not close the city\u2019s $14.5 million structural deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, our ability to raise taxes directly goes to supporting our ability to fight crime, put out fires, and do infrastructure projects,\u201d Gombach said.<\/p>\n
City leaders say much of the financial pressure today traces back to Reading\u2019s exit from Act 47, the state\u2019s financial distress program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey discussed at length the need for periodic increases of taxes to match the rate of growth of health care and obligations and contracts,\u201d Gombach said. \u201cThis is nothing unexpected, unfortunately. It’s something that’s always sort of been part of our recovery strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with the tax hike on the table, approval is not guaranteed at Monday night\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs it stands now, I’m not really sure the budget will be approved,\u201d said City Council President Donna Reed. \u201cI think people are really trying to figure everything out they can.\u201d<\/p>\n
If approved, city officials say the increase would help slow the growing deficit and reduce the risk of layoffs. If the budget is rejected or significantly altered, leaders have warned staffing cuts could be back on the table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2014 City Council is preparing to vote on a plan that will determine how the City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[30815,990,2716,61,744,7855,3066,28,736,128,130,129,2261],"class_list":{"0":"post-55652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-2026-budget","9":"tag-city-council","10":"tag-donna-reed","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-government","13":"tag-government-finances","14":"tag-jack-gombach","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-reading","17":"tag-reading-city","18":"tag-reading-city-headlines","19":"tag-reading-city-news","20":"tag-tax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55652","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=55652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}