came out against it<\/a> in her Election Night victory speech.<\/p>\nCouncil voted 5-2 on Nov. 20 to reject Tuerk\u2019s tax increase and instead borrow $1.5 million to fill that funding gap in the city\u2019s 2026 budget.<\/p>\n
That vote came after members opted against Tuerk\u2019s counteroffer to cut the impending trash-fee increase $25 while maintaining the 3.96% property tax increase. <\/p>\n
The mayor said that would shift more of the overall burden to wealthier residents and commercial property owners, many of whom would avoid a trash-fee increase because they use private trash services.<\/p>\n
He pondered a potential veto for council\u2019s funding scheme after the meeting, when he criticized some members as being \u201cunserious people\u201d who govern \u201cby vibes.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Controller Jeff Glazier also criticized the move to borrow more money to cover operating expenses, which shows \u201ccouncil doesn\u2019t have discipline and doesn\u2019t have good financial management skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council apparently softened stance<\/p>\n
It appears council has softened its stance in the wake of those comments, as members spent about an hour last week weighing Tuerk\u2019s Plan B and discussing potential new revenue streams.<\/p>\n
City Finance Director Bina Patel said the alternative proposal is a \u201cmore balanced approach\u201d than eliminating the property tax increase and preserving the full trash-fee increase, as council looked set to do.<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Gerlach said she worries additional tax and trash costs for property owners \u2014 whatever they end up being \u2014 will be passed on to tenants.<\/p>\n
Renters \u201cwill pay more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Patel noted that no budget proposal from the mayor and council this year has sought to block landlords from passing on additional costs.<\/p>\n
Council is scheduled to vote on the 2026 budget at its meeting Wednesday, Dec. 10. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 City lawmakers are set to reconsider raising property taxes and lowering a planned hike in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,3179,2748,121,2454,120,30852,3879,30853,2459],"class_list":{"0":"post-55738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-budget","10":"tag-allentown-city-council","11":"tag-allentown-headlines","12":"tag-allentown-mayor","13":"tag-allentown-news","14":"tag-allentown-tax-hike","15":"tag-allentown-taxes","16":"tag-allentown-trash-fees","17":"tag-matt-tuerk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55738","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=55738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}