ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The Allentown City Council will have a special meeting Tuesday for a proposed budget compromise that would slash the city’s solid waste fee by $50 while reinstating a previously removed property tax increase.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The proposal, sponsored by Councilpersons Cynthia Mota Affa, Daryl Hendricks, and Santo Napoli, seeks to reverse a Nov. 19 amendment that removed Mayor Matt Tuerk\u2019s proposed 3.96% tax increase from the General Fund Budget.<\/p>\n
According to the meeting agenda, the sponsors argue the new plan is more equitable than the mayor’s initial compromise of a $25 waste fee reduction.<\/p>\n
By doubling that reduction to $50 and bringing back the tax hike, officials say the burden shifts away from residents on fixed or limited incomes.<\/p>\n
The sponsors noted that under this alternate proposal, approximately 23,000 of the city’s 26,000 single-family residents would see a positive financial impact.<\/p>\n
“The alternate proposal lowers the garbage fee and results in little to no increase for lower-valued homes,” council paperwork states. “Higher-valued properties contribute slightly more, which reduces the burden on residents living on fixed or limited income.”<\/p>\n
To cover the immediate costs of the fee reduction, the General Fund would lend money to the Solid Waste Fund, a move described as a common city practice that would be paid back over time.<\/p>\n
Mayor Tuerk previously vetoed the council’s budget last week for not including the proposed tax hike.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the compromise is not approved, the budget Mayor Tuerk proposed in October will be instated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The proposal is scheduled for review during the City Council meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The Allentown City Council will have a special meeting Tuesday for a proposed budget compromise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,232,4958],"class_list":{"0":"post-71269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-allentown","10":"tag-allentown-headlines","11":"tag-allentown-news","12":"tag-allentown-area","13":"tag-city_township_county_councils"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71269","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=71269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}