‘Careful planning’: Allentown’s proposed 2025 budget would keep property tax level, increases trash fee

A proposed $240 million Allentown budget for 2025 would hold the line on property taxes while enacting a $190 increase in trash fees for residents, Mayor Matt Tuerk announced Thursday.

The plan for no tax increase is a reversal from statements city officials made in 2024, when they warned that the city might have to increase property taxes by up to 14.1% next year to cover necessary expenses. As recently as August, city Finance Director Bina Patel said the city could face a $6 million deficit in 2025 from necessary expenses alone, including rising health care costs and contractual raises for employees.

Allentown City Council last year rejected Tuerk’s budget proposal that would have increased taxes by 2%.

But Tuerk and Patel, during a news conference Thursday morning, said the city is seeing unexpected strength from several of its revenue streams, including the earned income tax and business privilege tax.

For example, the city brought in $45.6 million in earned income tax in 2024, and that number is expected to rise to $46.9 million in 2025 thanks to wage and job growth in Allentown. And because of increasing real estate development, the assessed, taxable value of buildings and land has increased by $2.57 million and $172.3 million, respectively.

“We know that, although inflation is slowing, our residents still feel the pressure from rising gas and grocery prices, increased cost of child care and household costs that won’t go down anytime soon,” Tuerk said. “So this year’s budget focuses on its stability. We’re going to continue to keep Allentown safe, clean and healthy and we’re going to do it in 2025 without raising any taxes.”

To keep the budget balanced, the city would not add or upgrade any jobs in 2025. However, Tuerk said city workers across many departments are facing increasing workloads, and that the city would likely propose new jobs in 2026.

“I can’t anticipate that a 2026 budget would not ask City Council to make a real investment in additional headcount,” Tuerk said. “We know that our police, our fire, our public works team are heavily taxed. They’re asked to do a lot. We would inspect more apartments every year if we had more inspectors, we would be able to provide more recreation programs if we’d hire more parks employees and do better and maintain parks like canal park with more maintenance employees. We can do more if we’re allowed to invest more.”

In the 2024 budget, Tuerk proposed adding 36 positions and upgrading 77, but City Council opted to only include three new positions, including a police telecom technician, financial analyst and solid waste program officer. The city also added 12 firefighter positions in 2024, funded via a federal grant.

Last week, City Council added two jobs via an amendment to the 2024 budget— a deputy fire chief with a $116,034 salary and a public health paramedicine specialist with a $66,977 salary that is funded by a grant — and cut two vacant positions from the budget — emergency management coordinator and community health specialist. The net costs of those changes to the city is around $13,000.

Even though the property tax would remain level at 23.53 mills, residents would see an increase to their trash collection fee in 2025, if the budget is adopted. The annual fee would increase from $415 to $605 next year to cover the costs associated with a new collection contract with J.P. Mascaro and Sons. City officials have said the fee would likely need to increase again, to $740, in 2026.

The last time property taxes in Allentown increased was in 2019, when former Mayor Ray O’Connell vetoed the city’s amended 2019 budget to enact a 27% tax increase.

Patel said the city did not budget for an increase to the city’s deed transfer tax, which is the topic of a citywide referendum on the November ballot. The referendum would specifically amend a section of the city charter that bans the city from raising the deed transfer tax. If the referendum is approved, City Council would need to pass an ordinance that increases that tax.

Patel said the city doesn’t plan to campaign in favor of the referendum. The Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors Association has launched a public campaign urging Allentonians to vote “no” on the referendum.

The city will host a series of budget hearings throughout November to present specific details of the budget. A final City Council vote on the budget is scheduled for Dec. 4.

Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com .