Published December 17. 2025 11:37AM<\/p>\n
With Northampton County Council Vice President John Goffredo absent from the council\u2019s Nov. 20 meeting, there was a deadlocked 4-4 vote on a proposal to raise the county\u2019s minimum fund balance to 10% of the general fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not meant to balance a budget,\u201d Councilman John Brown said before the vote. \u201cIt\u2019s not meant to be used for any other services, other than in an emergency when the county needs money. The state budget impasse is a good example. I didn\u2019t really hear a lot of complaints when the current administration withdrew $11.8 million to balance the budget. Where did it go? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilman Jeff Warren expressed concerns about what impact a required 10% minimum fund balance would have on the county budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this puts us in a financial and public policy noose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Councilman Ron Heckman sought a compromise and moved to amend the ordinance to lower the minimum to 7%. It was rejected by a vote of 5-3.<\/p>\n
Council President Lori Vargo Heffner said, even without setting a higher emergency reserve, a future tax increase is likely.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to raise taxes anyway,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019d say just plan on it. It\u2019s coming, whether it comes this year, next year, the year after. Hopefully, we could find other ways to get revenue, or we\u2019re going to have to make serious cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council also introduced an ordinance to set a tax rate of 10.8 mills for Northampton County property owners next year. Public comment, debate and a possible vote were to be on the agenda for the Dec. 4 meeting.<\/p>\n
During the Nov. 20 meeting, Tara Zrinski, county controller and incoming county executive, raised strong objections to the higher reserve, which would have gone into effect for the 2027 budget year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy codifying a 10% fund balance in law while failing to meet both the statutory program funding and required retirement contributions, you are leaving a legacy of an even larger compounded shortfall to make up in 2027, knowingly passing on the consequences to your successors. This is not good governance. It is an act of willful neglect,\u201d she said, forecasting a budgetary shortfall of $14.8 million going into 2027.<\/p>\n
She also objected to budget cuts to the Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release program at the county prison and to Pinebrook Family Answers anger management and parenting services, which are typically court ordered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe county has also ceased funding the pension fund since September and is funding neither the pension nor the retiree health care benefits in this budget. So too, the budget has zero dollars allocated toward a county contribution to Gracedale (Nursing Home),\u201d Zrinski said.<\/p>\n
County Executive Lamont McClure said of Zrinski\u2019s concerns, \u201cShe\u2019s mistaken about the LEAP program being required. Unfortunately, it started as a grant program. When that grant ran out, we continued to fund it at about a half a million dollars a year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to McClure, the prison census is low and there are only 11 people enrolled in the LEAP program.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just wasn\u2019t worth investing a half a million dollars a year in it, going forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Regarding Pinebrook services, McClure indicated there was disagreement about statutory requirements but said funding could be reallocated, if necessary.<\/p>\n
PRESS PHOTO BY BRIAN BINGAMANNorthampton County Controller Tara Zrinski addresses county council at the Nov. 20 meeting, voicing her opposition to raising the minimum fund balance to 10% and to certain budget cuts for next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published December 17. 2025 11:37AM With Northampton County Council Vice President John Goffredo absent from the council\u2019s Nov.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-63473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63473","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=63473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}