ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The City of Allentown still needs a budget for 2026.<\/p>\n
City council is holding a special meeting Tuesday night for another go at getting something passed.<\/p>\n
The plan voted on by council earlier this month was vetoed by Mayor Matt Tuerk because it did not include his administration’s 3.96% property tax increase.<\/p>\n
“I vetoed it because I don’t believe in unbalanced budgets. I don’t think we should be dipping into reserves to pay for essential expenses and services,” Tuerk said.<\/p>\n
The last time the city saw a property tax increase was in 2019, when former Mayor Ray O’Connell handed in his signed veto of bill 77, just seconds before the deadline \u2014 meaning council couldn’t override it.<\/p>\n
That year, residents saw a 27% tax increase.<\/p>\n
Tuerk says his administration’s proposed 3.96% increase would cost residents just over $2 more a month, and is necessary to keep the city fiscally sound.<\/p>\n
City council members who oppose the property tax increase disagree with Tuerk’s decision.<\/p>\n
“We in city council, we’re 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,” says Cynthia Mota, City Council vice president.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday night’s council meeting agenda is a resolution to override the mayor’s veto.<\/p>\n
In order to do this, five out of seven council members would need to vote to override.<\/p>\n
Also on the table is reinstating a proposed compromise by council, which would keep the property tax increase while reducing solid waste fees by $50.<\/p>\n
If city council fails to override the veto or come to a compromise, the original budget presented on October 15th with the 3.96% property tax will be the budget for 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The City of Allentown still needs a budget for 2026. City council is holding a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,232,4958],"class_list":{"0":"post-73380","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\/73380","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=73380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}