ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown’s mayor and city council are at a crossroads over the city’s upcoming 2026 budget. Mayor Matt Tuerk has vetoed the budget ordinance that council members adopted last Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That budget did not increase property taxes like Tuerk initially proposed in October.<\/p>\n
On Monday afternoon Tuerk released a memo explaining his rationale for vetoing all seven budget ordinances previously passed by council members.<\/p>\n
Tuerk said the passed budget was not balanced and was fiscally irresponsible.<\/p>\n
Some council members, on the other hand, say raising property taxes when people are struggling to buy food is not the way to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“My decision is simple. It’s fiscally irresponsible to draw in cash. Cities can only survive on cash for so long and its bad fiscal policy. I cannot support a budget that isn’t engaged in the best practices to keep our finances sound for the benefits of our residents,” Tuerk told 69 News.<\/p>\n
Tuerk said the amended $245 million budget city council members adopted on Dec. 17, does not increase revenue to meet the city’s rising costs.<\/p>\n
“Our proposal balanced the budget. It makes sure that the revenue that we generate meets the expenses that we’re going to incur to deliver services to the residents of the city of Allentown,” Tuerk explained.<\/p>\n
He stands by his proposal for a 3.96% property tax increase and a $50 decrease to the proposed trash fee.<\/p>\n
“The increase to households to property owners would be something like $2.15\/month for most Allentonians,” Tuerk stated.<\/p>\n
Tuerk said the last time the city increased taxes was in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We can do small increases every so often or we can have massive catastrophic to household increases and that’s what I’m trying to avoid for the benefits of our residents,” Tuerk said.<\/p>\n
Council Vice President Cynthia Mota disagrees with Tuerk’s decision.<\/p>\n
“We in city council are there to serve as a check and balance so I am very disappointed. The reality is, the community at this point is hurting and they don’t want a tax increase,” Mota stated.<\/p>\n
While Mota says she isn’t against raising taxes, now is not the time.<\/p>\n
“It’s really difficult for a lot of people to go and get food. At this point, a tax increase is not a good idea. I really believe that the administration, that they’re able to find the $1.5 million dollars that they want. It’s there, they can find it so that they can balance the budget as they want,” Mota explained. “It’s mainly up to this point up to the President of City Council to hold a meeting before the end of the year.”<\/p>\n
Mayor Tuerk and city council have until Dec. 31st to reach a compromise.<\/p>\n
If no decision is made, Tuerk’s balanced budget presented this past October will go into effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown’s mayor and city council are at a crossroads over the city’s upcoming 2026 budget.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,222,990,14934,2459,4774,18524,17259,16988,31095],"class_list":{"0":"post-68151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-budget","12":"tag-city-council","13":"tag-cynthia-mota","14":"tag-matt-tuerk","15":"tag-municipal-government","16":"tag-property-tax","17":"tag-public-finance","18":"tag-tax-increase","19":"tag-veto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68151","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=68151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}