Council caves, confirms mayor’s 1st proposal as Allentown’s 2026 budget

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — City residents will pay higher property taxes and trash fees this year after a new iteration of council immediately abandoned its budget battle with the mayor.

Council and Mayor Matt Tuerk clashed in December as members rejected a series of his proposals, some that would’ve eased those increases.

But by a 4-3 vote Tuesday night, they adopted Tuerk’s initial budget proposal as the city’s spending and revenue plan for 2026.

That confirms a 3.96% property tax raise — the first increase in seven years — and a $135 jump in annual trash fees.

New council members Jeremy Binder and Cristian Pungo joined council President Santo Napoli and Candida Affa to pass the mayor’s budget.

Cynthia Mota, Ce-Ce Gerlach and Natalie Santos continued their opposition.

“I voted against the tax increase because of the countless residents who are paying more for less, many of whom no longer have health care,” Gerlach said, referencing the recent expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Congress is actively debating extending the subsidies, with the House recently passing a bill, but a Senate compromise is pending, leaving many facing exorbitantly higher costs for 2026 coverage.

A monthly increase of “two or five dollars may not seem like a lot, but it’s everything to a senior citizen choosing between medication and heat,” Gerlach said.

New members, different outcome

Binder and Pungo swung the balance of council with their first votes as members.

They were sworn in last week, replacing former members Daryl Hendricks and Ed Zucal, who were split on the mayor’s request to raise taxes and trash fees.

“We’re here today because the administration and city council failed to fulfill a core obligation to the residents of Allentown, which is to pass a balanced budget,” Binder said.

He called Tuesday’s vote a “lose-lose scenario” for council.

Members could have conceded and ratified Tuerk’s budget, essentially letting him adopt a “default” budget — a mechanism that city residents overwhelmingly voted to eliminate from the city’s charter in 2019 “after another challenging budget season,” Binder said.

Or they could have voted no and continued to violate the Pennsylvania Municipal Code, which requires local officials to adopt the next year’s fiscal plan by Dec. 31.

Binder said he plans to soon introduce a resolution to clarify how city officials work through future budget stalemates.

Napoli on Tuesday backed Binder’s calls for clarity.

He "really hit the nail on the head on how we need to move forward so that this situation doesn’t happen again,” Napoli said.

“We need to put measures in place that enable us to get the work done for our residents and efficiently run the city.”

Budget battle over

Council last year rejected Tuerk’s first proposal and repeatedly rejected counter offers that would have eased the trash-fee increase.

Members, by a 4-3 vote, eventually passed its own budget that kept property taxes flat but included the full $135 trash-fee increase.

Tuerk called that vote “bulls—t” and hit out at council for again rejecting a “reasonable” tax increase. He vetoed council’s budget days later.

An effort to override Tuerk’s veto failed, also by a 4-3 vote. That left the city without an approved budget on the eve of 2026.

Tuerk told LehighValleyNews.com he would use his initial budget proposal as the city’s official budget come Jan. 1.

The mayor said he has the authority to default back to his own proposal in the absence of a budget agreement, despite voters moving to eliminate that option within the past decade.

Council and its solicitor disagreed in late 2025 but changed its stance with its first act of 2026.

A debate over the mayor’s budgetary authority is now moot — at least until officials start working on the 2027 budget.