ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Budget season came to a close Wednesday night as city council passed a city spending plan at its final scheduled meeting of the year.
But there's still no agreement between the body and Mayor Matt Tuerk on how to fund city operations in 2026.
Council members Ce-Ce Gerlach, Cynthia Mota, Ed Zucal and Natalie Santos voted to adopt a budget that ditches the mayor’s initial 3.96% property tax increase but maintains his request for a $135 jump in trash-related fees.
“I have to think about what I’m going to do."Mayor Matt Tuerk on a potential veto
Council members Daryl Hendricks, Santo Napoli and Candida Affa voted against that funding arrangement minutes after backing the mayor’s latest proposed compromise: keeping the tax increase intact while lowering the trash-fee increase $50.
The mayor criticized council's move to adopt a 2026 budget that is “unbalanced” as being “the height of stupidity.”
It relies on taking $1.5 million from city coffers to bridge a gap between revenues and expenses.
“I have to think about what I’m going to do,” Tuerk said regarding a potential veto for the budget council forced through after rejecting a series of his counterproposals.
The mayor has five days to nix the budget approved Wednesday night; that would force council to reconvene for a special meeting to override his veto or accept the mayor’s initial proposal.
He also could accept council's budget and sign it or let it take effect without his signature, as he did two years ago.
Timeline: Oct. 16
Tuerk in mid-October presented his 2026 budget proposal to council. It called for a 3.96% property tax increase — the first in seven years — and a $740 annual trash fee, up $135 from 2025.
He said the city needed additional revenues to continue funding the same level of essential services it provided this year, with the coronavirus pandemic and inflation pushing costs up for all in recent years — including municipal governments.
And trash fees must climb to keep the city’s Solid Waste Fund solvent amid rising costs from the city’s contract with J.P. Mascaro & Sons, which started in June.
Officials also have to replace about $4.5 million in lost federal funding in next year’s budget, Tuerk told council.
The mayor on Wednesday told LehighValleyNews.com he settled on a property tax increase of about 4% after Mota signaled her support for it in September.
Nov. 4
Mota quickly became the swing vote after three of her colleagues backed a tax increase and three others made clear they were against it.
She seemed poised to be the final vote to get the mayor’s tax increase over the line.
But after winning a historic fourth term on Allentown City Council on Nov. 4, Mota used her Election Night victory speech to sink the mayor’s proposed tax increase.
She called out the mayor for asking “struggling” families to pay more in taxes next year amid an affordability crisis and heightened food insecurity.
Mota said she recognized the city’s “need to increase revenue to cover rising costs” of salaries, insurance, infrastructure and more, but blamed the Tuerk Administration’s “poor financial management” as the root cause rather than other factors.
Mota said the mayor’s team should “do more with less.”
Tuerk said the city already has “done everything that we can” to maintain services without generating new revenues.
He urged Mota and other members to support his 3.96% tax increase “to spare residents another shock” like the one they felt in 2019 when their tax bills spiked 27%.
Nov. 19
By a 5-2 vote, council adopted a budget that rejected any tax increase and instead required the city to borrow $1.5 million from its reserve fund to balance.
“I made a promise” not to raise taxes.Councilwoman Cynthia Mota on her steadfast opposition to Tuerk's compromise proposals
City Controller Jeff Glazier slammed that move. He said it shows “council doesn’t have discipline and doesn’t have good financial management skills.”
Napoli and Affa were the two members who voted against that form of the 2026 budget.
Tuerk during council's Nov. 19 meeting offered another funding plan: Keep the 3.96% property tax increase but lower the trash-fee hike $25.
That would’ve required the city to borrow about half as much and shifted more of the overall tax-and-trash burden to wealthier residents and commercial property owners.
But council members ignored that option for their own plan.
Tuerk after the meeting criticized some members as “unserious people” who govern “by vibes.”
Dec. 3
Two weeks later, council members asked the mayor to run his backup plan by them again.
They spent about an hour discussing potential new revenue and weighing Tuerk’s Plan B, which Finance Director Bina Patel said was a “more balanced approach” than eliminating the property tax increase and maintaining the full trash-fee hike.
Council took no vote and scheduled its final budget meetings for Dec. 10.
Dec. 17
But a snowstorm forced lawmakers to postpone that meeting a week.
When they returned Wednesday night, Hendricks, Napoli and Affa introduced yet another compromise backed by the mayor — maintain the 3.96% tax increase while lowering the trash-fee increase $50.
Affa called it “a great proposal” that would “save a lot of people money.”
Annual real estate taxes and trash fees are itemized on the same bill for property owners.
The tax and trash-fee increases are “a small price to pay for what we’re trying to accomplish here in a growing city.”Allentown Councilman Santo Napoli
Patel said almost 90% of the city’s roughly 26,000 properties would receive bills that were smaller or equal to what they would have been under Tuerk's initial proposal.
The compromise would require the city to use millions from its general fund to prop up the Solid Waste Fund, a move that included projected interest costs of about $100,000 over five years, according to Patel.
Napoli again urged his colleagues to support Tuerk’s first proposal made two months ago. He said the tax and trash-fee increases are “a small price to pay for what we’re trying to accomplish here in a growing city.”
Mota repeated her stance on affordability, calling it her No. 1 issue.
“I made a promise” not to raise taxes, she said. She said many residents already are struggling to keep their heads above water.
Where the increases fall
Council’s budget would bring savings to all who pay taxes and trash fees in Allentown when compared with Tuerk’s initial proposal.
But the budget Mota helped pass would see owners of lower-valued properties pay more than either of the mayor’s counterproposals.
Owners of properties valued at about $170,000 or less for tax purposes would pay more under council's plan than they would have under the compromise proposed Wednesday night, according to a LehighValleyNews.com analysis.
“What they just voted for is better for the person who lives by Wegman’s [in West Allentown] than it is for the person who lives by C-Town" in Jordan Heights.Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk
The mayor’s Plan B — suggested last month — would have brought overall savings for owners of properties valued at about $100,000 or less for tax purposes.
If the mayor signs off on council’s budget, the owner of a Jordan Heights home with a tax valuation of $57,000 would pay $1,088 in taxes and trash fees next year.
Council’s two-month effort to block a tax increase saves that homeowner $14 next year, though they’ll pay $36 more than they would have if council adopted the compromise proposed Wednesday.
The owner of a property that abuts the Allentown Municipal Golf Course valued at $735,000 would pay $182 less under council's budget than Tuerk’s initial proposal. The mayor’s Plan C would have cut their costs by just $50.
“What they just voted for is better for the person who lives by Wegman’s [in West Allentown] than it is for the person who lives by C-Town" in Jordan Heights, Tuerk said Wednesday.
“It’s bulls—t,” he said of council members again voting against a “reasonable” property tax increase, which would have been the first in seven years.
