2026-10-15 - City Council Special Meeting

00:03.14] Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Matt Turk. I'm the mayor of the City of Allentown.

00:07.62] I want to welcome you all. It's a friendly audience here, it looks like, to the People's

00:14.41] Hearing Room or the Public Hearing Room, as we've been calling it. I want to say hi to

00:17.61] everybody out there on Facebook. Today, we are announcing our 2027 budget. It's a day

00:25.88] that I know many of us look forward to every year, particularly our City Council members.

00:31.50] So, I'm very, very, very happy to be here with you. I have a new tradition where every

00:36.30] time I'm in front of a microphone or speaking to a crowd, because Allentown is a majority

00:41.39] Latino city, I like to take a word in English and translate it to Spanish. We're all going

00:47.20] to learn a little bit of Spanish. So, today's word should be obvious to everyone. We're

00:52.74] going to do budget. Yeah, okay. So, we all know how to say budget in English. I'm going

00:58.57] to ask for some help, although I know the new word. Can somebody help me with budget

01:02.77] in Spanish? Freddy is saying no. Let's see. Jay, do you want to help us with budget in

01:10.24] Spanish? It's preciupuesto. The word for budget in Spanish is preciupuesto. We have

01:20.22] the preciupuesto para el año dos mil penti siete para precentale auteres. So, for all

01:26.24] of our English speakers, we're going to say the word preciupuesto. So, after me, preciupuesto.

01:31.68] Good, awesome. We can all learn. I'm really happy to join you today and present this

01:41.30] budget. I want to tell you, we have made a tremendous amount of progress in our city

01:47.49] of Allentown budget. When I took office back in 2022 and worked through my very first budget,

01:54.45] we made huge strides over previous budgets. We made strong investments in the people who

02:00.91] make the city of Allentown work. We dealt with problems that administrations of the

02:06.03] past tried to ignore. And we made smart decisions about the future of our city collectively.

02:13.56] We worked together as a group and got to a budget that was good for all of our city

02:20.82] employees, for all of our city residents and good for the future of the city. I'm really

02:27.55] pleased that we're able to build on that progress in the 2027 budget. We went through,

02:35.50] as usual, a months-long process to come to today. That process has gotten better and

02:42.75] better over time as well. In our first budget, we worked alongside our city council members

02:51.31] and did not go as smoothly as we always wanted it to. We have taken the message, we've gotten

02:58.74] the message from our city council, we've developed a more collaborative budget process. And

03:04.06] I'm very happy that today I can say we've worked closely with city council, not alongside

03:09.14] city council, to bring you this budget today. Before I jump in, I do want to thank a few

03:17.52] people who were instrumental in the preparation of the 2027 proposed budget. First and foremost,

03:27.86] I want to recognize and thank Bina Patel, who is our director of finance at the City

03:33.85] of Allentown. Bina and her team, including Mike Zumis and Bobby and Martin and Erica,

03:41.20] worked tirelessly and I won't even go into the hours. They won't tell me the hours they

03:45.72] worked. We just know they worked into the night for a long time to deliver the budget

03:50.64] that we have today. And I want to just applaud them for their work. This is Bina's third

03:59.90] budget, fourth budget now. Bina has made a tremendous amount of progress, has been

04:06.21] recognized by the government finance, the GFOA is by the government finance association

04:16.83] for the work of her department year after year. And that shows in the quality of this

04:23.63] budget. So thank you to Bina and her team. I want to thank Frank Kane, who joined us

04:28.86] this year as our managing director. I think that you can see and Bina will attest to it,

04:34.62] that the process this time has been incredibly smooth due to the work that Frank has put

04:40.06] in on this budget. He's done a phenomenal job building relationships with city council,

04:45.30] working closely with our department heads to deliver a budget that I'm incredibly

04:49.74] proud of. I also want to, and I'm going to show you the budget before I get into it,

04:54.98] but I want to thank somebody who's not with us today. When I ran for mayor back in 2021,

05:03.80] I was getting to know the city's budget. I'm a budget nerd. My background is in accounting.

05:10.00] I was a controller for a billboard company in Panama. I live and breathe balance sheets

05:15.36] and activity statements and capital projections. It's just, it makes me happy. A very close

05:24.26] friend welcomed me in to city hall to dig into the city budget when I was a candidate

05:31.07] back in 2021. He was instrumental in helping me understand how different government finance

05:39.22] is from corporate finance. He helped me understand the realities of budgeting in government and

05:47.62] he helped me understand how to thoroughly analyze a financial statement on the government

05:54.10] side to understand what's going on and deliver for residents. Through over the past four

06:03.05] plus years, he was a close friend, helped advise our team on preparation of budgets

06:10.56] year after year, helped make sure that we were treating our residents fairly and that

06:16.06] we weren't engaging in any wasteful practices. He also made life in city hall just much

06:27.22] brighter. And I'm talking, I think you all know, I'm talking about Jeff Glazier who

06:31.84] passed earlier this year. Jeff spent years as our city controller and he's deeply missed

06:43.43] his smile and his acerbic wit is something that I continue to think about every day when

06:51.49] I think about his public service. So I want to thank Jeff as well, not just for this

06:59.82] budget but for every budget and every budget into the future. And I'll show you, this

07:05.10] is our draft budget book. We're incredibly happy to include a portrait of Jeff with

07:13.73] his beloved Artemis on the cover of the 2027 budget and we'll continue to look for ways

07:19.01] to honor his legacy. I hope that this budget, that it's not just the cover, that it's

07:25.13] the budget itself which honors Jeff's commitment to our residents here in Allentown. And that's

07:32.33] why I'm proud to announce that this is a balanced budget, that we're delivering a

07:40.62] 2027 balanced budget to city council and to the residents of the city of Allentown. And

07:48.00] I want to get into some detail in a second, but I am incredibly proud of what our team

07:53.48] has accomplished to bring that budget into balance. Before I do get into it, I do want

08:01.91] to recognize our department heads here as well. Their work on this budget, their work

08:09.26] every day to meet the needs of the residents of the city of Allentown often goes without

08:16.83] thanks but whenever I get a chance I do particularly in an event like this, I want to recognize

08:22.86] what they do every day. You already heard from Bina Patel, our director of finance

08:27.82] but I also want to recognize chief of the Allentown Police Department Charles Roca who

08:32.84] is here with us, our chief of the Allentown Fire Department Freddie Augusto, the director

08:39.02] of the Department of Public Works Mark Shada, the director of Community and Economic Development

08:45.13] Vicki Kistler as well as health director Dave Cinnamon. We also have Mandy Tolino who is

08:52.96] the director of our Department of Parks and Recreation with us as well. Also on the operational

08:58.88] side, I'm glad that we're joined by EMS chief Mehmet Barzev. On the admin side, in addition

09:04.67] to Bina's work, I'm so proud to work alongside Marty Velasquez who directs our human resources

09:11.60] department, Jerry Anthony who leads our IT department and Jack Gross who is the city

09:17.68] solicitor and leads the law department. The work that they all do is absolutely incredible

09:23.68] every day but also helping to deliver a budget that is going to be good for our residents,

09:28.72] good for their pocketbooks and good for their futures is something that I'm grateful to

09:34.00] you all for so I thank you. And also I saw we were just joined by our new city controller

09:40.48] Jasmine Salgado. I'm glad that you're joining us as well. Welcome and welcome to the presentation

09:46.84] of the 2027 city budget. I hope it meets your approval. So I want to start with just a

09:54.11] quick, a small set of slides. I'm not a slides guy as many of you know but I want to just

10:01.45] help root our understanding of the 2027 budget in a few different images. So the first is

10:08.25] where your tax dollar is going to as residents. We take your tax dollars very seriously. We

10:16.93] are stewards of the public purse and we want to make sure that you have a depth of understanding

10:22.46] exactly how we spend your money for the benefit of everybody in the city of Allentown. And

10:29.74] thanks to the team in the mayor's office, Chelsea Korbler who leads communications,

10:35.14] we have this incredible graphic which shows you and most people would immediately be able

10:41.32] to guess but a full 56 percent of our tax dollars of our general fund budget goes to

10:50.02] police, fire and EMS. This is what people often think about when they think about municipal

10:56.00] government. They think about who's going to show up when you call 911, who is there

11:01.25] for you in an emergency, who is there to avert tragedy when you are in an environment

11:10.61] like that. So a big piece of what we do every day goes to those emergency services, police,

11:16.43] fire and EMS. The next biggest piece you can imagine in a city of with 18 square miles

11:23.22] and 440 miles of streets and 280 miles of alleys and how many miles of sewers and the

11:34.23] storm sewer? 300 miles of storm sewer. You can imagine that a huge portion of the budget

11:39.98] would also go to maintenance of our public works and that's the next 10 percent.

11:46.49] The next largest piece of what we do is a host of different activities but the lead

11:53.15] thing and I think something that's important for residents to understand, it goes to things

11:56.95] like code enforcement, to maintenance of public health, so inspecting restaurants and all

12:02.75] of the other things in the community and economic development department led by Vicki

12:06.99] Kessler and the health bureau, led by Dave Cinnamon. These are the things that we do

12:12.35] to help keep our residents safe and doing well and healthy over the course of a day.

12:21.13] Six percent of our spending goes to service debt so in order to maintain our public works,

12:29.61] in order to maintain an incredible park system, we have gone out in the past to borrow. We

12:37.09] are servicing that debt now and that is the fourth largest portion of our spending followed

12:44.54] closely by parks and recreation. The crown jewel, most people will point to our incredible

12:49.46] parks department when they say what they're most proud of in the city of Allentown and

12:53.90] we spend accordingly to maintain a park system that is accessible, available to everyone

13:01.01] that we can meet the health needs of even our youngest through our park system that

13:07.80] accounts for five percent of our tax dollars. IT comes up next at four percent. You can

13:16.30] imagine the cost associated with keeping 900 employees connected, keeping an entire

13:24.05] city informed, much of that comes down to our information technology budget. Next we

13:32.10] batch together admin which is our finance department, our various other administrative

13:41.50] services come down into the admin department elected offices. This is one where we share

13:47.46] so our friends in city council, our friends in the controller's office and the mayor's

13:51.44] office collectively account for about three percent of spending which is very close to

13:57.02] what we spend on the HR and risk side where we are providing services that support the

14:03.74] 900 employees beyond just their connectivity needs. And then finally we have an equipment

14:10.60] budget that counts for about one percent. Those are the vehicles and other center equipment

14:16.36] that we use to just deliver those city services. So I think that's a good informative break

14:21.32] down of how your dollar gets spent here in the city. But I also want to let you know

14:27.00] where that money comes from and overwhelmingly the majority of our general fund comes from

14:36.71] tax revenue. This is a reality for Allentown and it has been for a very long time that

14:43.15] about a little over 60 percent of all of our general fund dollars comes from one of

14:48.27] two different taxes either your property tax or your income tax. So in the past property

14:56.25] tax was the greatest contributor to our general fund. In recent years, and I've mentioned

15:02.37] this before, income tax has grown to take over as the leader in the clubhouse for where

15:10.20] our general fund revenue comes from. That is a positive trend. It is a trend that we

15:19.38] have a bit of control over as we work to attract jobs and investment to Allentown and the Lehigh

15:25.02] Valley. And it's one that is helping us with our annual budget. After those two big tax

15:33.98] buckets come state and federal funding. These are the grants that we receive from the federal

15:38.62] government to do a host of different things. And I want to just offer a note of thanks

15:43.58] to our state senators and state representatives Nick Miller, Jared Coleman, Pete Schwier,

15:50.46] Mike Schlossberg and Anna Tibercio who are always on the lookout and always looking to

15:57.02] bring funding back to the city of Allentown to support projects and programs that we do

16:02.00] that benefit our residents. The next section here is business privilege tax, which is the

16:09.20] tax that we levy on retail and service businesses for their activity in the city. A host of

16:18.05] other taxes, other income permits and licenses is a relatively small piece of this. And then

16:23.45] the interest that we earn on investments. The reason to show you the longer tail there

16:28.63] is to point out that the way that we move the needle, the thing that we do that really

16:32.67] impacts how we fund our government is property tax and income tax. When you are looking

16:39.87] for how to increase revenue and support various different services, trying to find other streams

16:47.05] of revenue is incredibly challenging. We're limited in what we can do. Our greatest lever

16:52.75] is property tax and income tax and thankfully increased economic activity in the city of

16:58.55] Allentown has led to increased property tax and increased income tax and we expect that

17:04.37] to continue. So I gave you how we spend the money, I gave you where the money comes from.

17:10.03] I want to take a minute now to just reiterate our priorities or my mayoral priorities. This

17:15.23] is a better and deeper version of where our money goes and what we are invested in. You

17:20.47] saw that 56% of our expenses are public safety. It's fire, EMS and police. We have done incredible

17:30.25] work under the leadership of Chief Roca in reducing violent crime in the city of Allentown,

17:35.86] achieving some of the lowest levels that we've ever seen in aggravated assault, in

17:39.46] homicide, the things that people truly worry about. So public safety is always going to

17:44.98] be a priority for me as mayor, for mayors across the country. We're trying to create

17:49.69] a safe environment where people feel comfortable and where they can thrive. I have taken it

17:55.29] a step further. We committed a couple of years ago to reducing serious injury and death on

18:02.83] our roadways for all roadway users, a program called Vision Zero. So we have been supported

18:08.55] by Mark Schade's team in traffic control and Chief Roca's team in traffic enforcement

18:14.11] to slow things down in the city of Allentown. We will continue to make investments in infrastructure

18:19.83] in our city that slow things down and make it safer, but the belief is that if we can

18:24.27] slow traffic down, and this is what everybody asks us about, all of our elected officials,

18:28.99] when they're meeting with residents, what they hear is we need to slow it down. They're

18:32.81] worried about the safety of their children in the streets. We need to just slow things

18:36.78] down. That is where we are going to continue to invest our time and energy is on making

18:42.84] it safer for all of our residents. And we do that through, you've probably driven over

18:47.02] some of these speed cushions. I'm looking forward to more speed cushions. You've definitely

18:52.88] seen our, this is, he calls himself Picasso, our Picasso of the pedestrian crosswalks.

19:00.72] He's been out there. This was a very smart investment in a piece of equipment that has

19:04.84] allowed our team to increase their productivity around pedestrian crosswalks. But we are going

19:10.96] to do everything that we can to increase visibility for pedestrians, for bicyclists,

19:14.96] and for drivers. This isn't just about making it pedestrian and bicycle heaven. We want

19:20.04] to make sure that our drivers and our motorcycle operators are also able to navigate our streets

19:25.68] safely. So this is a priority that if you haven't been paying attention, you're probably

19:32.00] going to knock. Public safety and particularly street safety is a huge priority for us.

19:38.07] Another one, a significant one, economic mobility is one way of phrasing it. Inclusive

19:43.61] growth is another way of phrasing it. There are mushy words around this, but basically

19:48.01] our commitment is to our residents to give them a chance to get ahead. We want to make

19:52.25] sure that residents in the city of Allentown can do better and that they can get to good

19:57.57] jobs, that they are living in a city that is affordable, where housing is available

20:05.54] and affordable, where their utility costs are low, where the everyday cost of living

20:10.38] can be kept as low as possible through the measures that we can take. We can do a couple

20:15.79] things in that respect. One big thing that we've been working on for a little while

20:19.67] now is something called Allentown Works, where we have identified a variety of different

20:24.91] obstacles that residents face in getting to good jobs or participating in the labor

20:29.51] force. This is a partnership with the Allentown Economic Development Corporation that focuses

20:34.95] on reducing barriers that people face in transportation, that people might face in

20:40.55] the availability and flexibility of childcare, in training, and in industrial sites here

20:46.55] in the city of Allentown. We're going to be able to bring good jobs to our city.

20:51.50] I would say this, we want to make sure everybody knows that the Lehigh Valley is doing amazing.

20:57.39] I was recently with Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis and a host of other mayors from around

21:02.35] the Commonwealth, and he couldn't stop talking about how great things were in the Lehigh Valley.

21:06.91] He kept mentioning the $3.5 billion investment that Eli Lilly is going to be making into

21:12.57] Upper Macungee. We recently announced a $1.2 billion investment for Chobani in Upper Macungee.

21:21.11] My intent is for all of the jobs that are created there, and I think we said something

21:24.83] like together it'd be over 1,700 jobs created. I want to make sure that every single job

21:31.65] can be filled by an Allentown resident. That means making sure that they have the training

21:35.60] they need to enter into good manufacturing jobs, that they don't face any real transportation

21:41.10] challenges in getting there, that their kids have flexible and affordable childcare, that

21:46.77] they can get through these good jobs and fully participate. We are regional partners.

21:52.96] When Upper Mac does well, when Bethlehem does well, when Emmaus does well, when Easton

21:58.05] does well, we should do well as well. But we can only do that if we can make sure that

22:03.06] our residents have a clear path to those good jobs. So this is going to continue to

22:08.51] be something that we focus on, and that's where Vicki and Dave and their teams have

22:14.00] been so essential, working to make sure that our residents have healthy homes, that they

22:21.31] have lead-free homes, that they have safe homes, and that we are doing everything we

22:27.05] can to put them in a position to succeed. So this will continue to be a priority for

22:33.47] us. The other one, and those things show up in the budget, and that is what we're

22:37.34] paying for. We're paying for our increased investment in police, in safe streets, increased

22:43.82] investment in rental inspections and code enforcement and in health to make sure that

22:49.26] we are safe and healthy as we do this work. We're also, and this is a big one, you know,

22:54.63] as Alantonians, the city has changed a lot over the years. We are a city that looks

22:59.75] very different than we did 20 years ago, even very different than we looked just a

23:05.09] few years ago, five years ago. Alanton continues to change, and we have to continue to do

23:10.04] everything that we can as municipal employees to engage our residents in the life of the

23:16.28] city. We want to make sure that every single resident in the city feels seen, that they

23:21.12] feel heard, that they don't feel like they have to be an insider to know the best way

23:26.28] to get a tax bill paid or who to call when they need a problem taken care of in their

23:33.65] neighborhood. Actually, the best thing they can do is go to 311.alantownpa.gov to report

23:41.09] any problem that they might have in their neighborhood. We want to make sure that everybody

23:45.88] knows that, and the way to do that is to engage people. It is for our employees to

23:52.95] be in the neighborhoods, to be where the people are, to connect with residents and

23:59.91] to connect with them in an authentic way that welcomes them into the decision making, into

24:04.75] the life of the city. This budget continues to do that. This makes sure that all of our

24:10.04] employees from a patrol officer to a firefighter to a rental inspector to one of our communities

24:15.82] nurses to one of our events coordinators for parks, that even a tax examiner or a payroll

24:24.39] specialist or one of our city solicitors is engaged in our residents and engaged with

24:34.89] bringing them on, bringing them on board to write the future of the city. You will

24:39.87] continue to see that investment because it's a deep and important priority for us and

24:46.10] for my administration. So I said the priorities for you. I wanted to let you know how we

24:52.02] got to the point that we are at now with the budget. It meant a lot of hard work from

24:57.30] our team, as I mentioned before. But I want to give you some specifics on things that

25:01.88] we did to balance this budget. The first and probably the most painful for a lot of

25:08.84] our department heads was we started and Frank was able to deliver this, just a 10% reduction

25:19.80] across the board in our budget. We asked our department heads, now this doesn't affect

25:24.24] staffing. So we didn't ask anybody to reduce staffing by 10%. We said go to your budget,

25:31.05] look at the discretionary costs that you have and reduce by 10%. I've said this before,

25:37.35] I'll continue to say this is what I said in my first budget. Budgets are about people.

25:41.79] Municipal government is a service business. You can't deliver quality services without

25:46.53] an excellent, significant investment in people. It's something that Marty has been able to

25:52.15] help us gear up with a focus on training here at the city. We are going to continue

25:57.44] to invest in people. We won't make cuts there, but what I did ask all of our department

26:01.28] heads to do was go back and take a hard look at what we're doing. This is an organization

26:07.68] that is well-earned to innovate and part of innovation is doing more like learning

26:13.82] from what you've done, do more of that, do less of the things that aren't incredibly

26:17.64] effective. And so our team went back and looked at everything and we asked them to

26:22.96] do over 10% budget cut and they did that. Across all departments, everybody faced the

26:27.76] same challenge and everybody rose to that challenge and I'm again grateful to you all

26:33.61] for doing that. Before I move on, I do want to say when we did that, the other thing

26:39.22] that we said is we're not going to kick the can down the road. The investments that we

26:43.98] make at the city of Valentine's, I'm going to come back to it in a second. We're not

26:49.07] robbing Peter to pay Paul. When we made these cuts, these are cuts that are sustainable

26:55.01] for the future. We're not hiding anything. We're not trying to play with accounting

27:00.96] tricks. We asked our team to make cuts and these are cuts that will sustain us through

27:06.51] future budgets. A big one that we learned about, so to give you GLP1s have had a significant

27:15.03] positive impact on people across America. It's helped people manage their health. It's

27:21.75] helped people live more active, better lives and it has gotten incredibly expensive. When

27:29.17] we first started supporting GLP1 coverage in the city, it was costing us about $500,000

27:35.45] a year. Is that accurate? The projections have us spending, would have had us spending

27:42.73] approximately $5 million a year in coming years. We would not be able to continue to

27:48.91] do that. One thing that we did is we went to our employees and we said we are not going

27:53.15] to be able to continue to cover your GLP1 medications. I'm grateful to our employees

27:58.79] for their understanding of this decision. It is helping us continue to deliver for

28:05.31] the residents of the City of Allentown. It's a huge impact on our budget and again I want

28:11.27] to thank our employees for their understanding with this cut. Another significant impact

28:17.95] is that we ended retiree healthcare eligibility for new hires beginning January 1, 2027. No,

28:26.25] this does not impact our police. It doesn't impact our fire. It impacts our non-bargaining

28:32.79] employees. So starting January 1, 2027, new employees will not receive healthcare benefits

28:40.22] upon retirement. So this is a 20 years later issue but it impacts our finances now. It's

28:46.26] a significant savings. I'm grateful to Bina and her team for finding this and for the

28:52.71] negotiation team to work with our employees to again asking them to accept that change

28:58.88] for the future. And finally another thing that we did that allowed us to balance this

29:05.79] budget is we have planned capital investments that you can imagine. It's great to hear

29:12.88] about Lilly and Shobani coming to the Lehigh Valley. It's great to see all of the investment

29:18.59] in our region. All of that investment means increased demand for building services and

29:24.13] when we are building things and I said before we're not going to kick the can down the

29:27.41] road. We're going to continue to invest in infrastructure here in Allentown from those

29:32.93] important parks to our roadways to buildings like a public safety building for our police

29:38.65] department and soon a fire, a new central fire station for our firefighters. We're going

29:45.35] to make those investments. We're just going to make them the right way. So we took a

29:48.49] hard look at the plans for each of those buildings. We took a hard look at our plans

29:52.89] for roads and parks and we made sure that they were right size. We made sure that we

29:57.59] would be able to continue to not defer maintenance but to accept responsibility for those changes

30:05.20] now. So that was really, well that was it. The 10% was a big cut but we were able to

30:13.66] through those cuts get our expenses down to the point that we were able to present

30:25.08] a small tax increase ask for our residents. So here's the big announcement of the budget,

30:32.31] the thing that most people hang on. We're going to ask your average taxpayer to pay

30:38.09] about $1.75 more per month in property taxes. So that second largest share of our revenue

30:45.57] that comes from property taxes, we are increasing it on average for our residents about $1.75

30:51.53] a month, which for a $5 cup of coffee is about that much less coffee. So I think Frank

30:57.54] that's for you, you're a 20 ounce guy, you can go down to 12 ounces a couple, a few

31:02.53] times a month, a little less coffee, you can handle that. There you go, way to be.

31:10.18] It's about $1.75 a month for most residents. In terms of, we're also at Donut City, Marianne

31:19.27] Donut City. In terms of Marianne Donuts, that means 11 donuts instead of a dozen donuts.

31:27.69] It's a slight reduction in what our residents will be able to buy when they're at the counter.

31:35.34] I think that was a pistachio donut, which I'm not fond of anyway. But we're asking

31:41.40] our residents to take on this small tax increase to help us continue to deliver the city services

31:48.85] that mean so much to our residents. We will continue to deliver those services. I've

31:56.68] said it before, those are the services that our residents deserve. Our residents deserve

32:01.84] prompt attention to a pothole when they report it at 311. Our residents deserve fire, police

32:09.51] and paramedics that show up in an unbelievably low response time. We have one of the best

32:15.37] response times in public safety across the country. And that's what our residents deserve.

32:21.81] It can avert tragedy. Our residents deserve safe places to live where our code inspectors

32:30.09] and our rental inspectors are holding landlords accountable. Our residents deserve high quality

32:36.81] public health. These are the things that our residents deserve, and we're going to

32:40.25] continue to deliver them. In order to accomplish that, we asked our department heads and our

32:45.57] employees to give something up, and we're asking our residents to give something as

32:50.03] well. It means that we'll be able to sustain our progress. We've made tremendous progress,

32:55.32] as I mentioned before, in reducing violent crime, in slowing traffic down in Allentown

33:00.52] to save lives, in improving the quality and quantity of housing in our city, in investing

33:08.62] in improvements to our parks. Everywhere you look, we've made tremendous progress

33:13.14] in the city of Allentown. We want to keep that going. We don't want to take our foot

33:16.30] off the gas. We know that this is a tough time for residents, that prices are up everywhere,

33:23.38] at the gas pump, on your utility bills. There's lots of different things that impact you.

33:29.90] We're asking for a very small increase. It's a 3.81% increase that will allow us to continue

33:36.93] to deliver the highest quality services and continue to make Allentown a place that everybody

33:41.77] can be proud of when they call it home. The last thing I want to go say to our residents,

33:48.37] to those of you on Facebook particularly, you can look right now, we have a website

33:54.79] set up where you can see what the annual impact will be for you. In this case, this

34:03.07] resident on Gordon Street is going to pay about $15.34 more per year. That works out

34:10.65] to about $1.27, so that'd be under the average, $1.27 per month. I looked up mine, I'm going

34:18.61] to pay $4.61 more per month in property taxes at my house. We understand that this is an

34:29.17] ask that we're making of residents. We want to make sure that you have all the information

34:32.63] you need and I do ask you, I'll see you on the streets. You saw the picture of me and

34:38.32] the mayors pop up, I'm out, I'm available all the time. I hear from you, I hear when

34:42.76] you let me know that you're not happy about a tax increase. I ask you to take a look

34:48.17] and see what it's going to cost you just to do your background, do your information

34:56.21] and then look around and see how good things are across our city when it comes to the services

35:03.42] that we deliver. Be informed by this. The next step in this budget after you inform

35:15.25] yourself of the reality of the budget is this is a budget that is being delivered to

35:19.29] the City Council today. It's due on October 15th. City Council has meetings scheduled

35:24.72] now to deliberate on the budget to hear from our department heads to go into the details

35:31.84] of the budget to explain exactly the cuts that we made, what we plan to do over the

35:36.55] course of 2027. City Council was part of this budget process the whole time. We're

35:42.89] grateful for the attendance of many of our City Council members at committee meetings

35:47.25] to review the budget in advance of printing. They're fully aware and I know that this

35:52.95] is a responsible budget. It's balanced, the small tax increase is the responsible thing

35:59.36] to do and I'm asking City Council, I know that City Council's, they're read in on this

36:04.58] budget, they're aware of what we're asking them for and I'm confident that over the

36:08.52] course of the next couple of months we'll be able to deliver a City budget to our residents

36:14.06] that they can afford and that continues the progress we've been able to make in our city.

36:20.05] So I'm going to conclude with that. I will answer any questions. I also have, as I mentioned,

36:27.11] all of our department heads are here so if they're department specific questions, we

36:30.75] can answer those as well but I turn it over to WFMZ or the morning call. Yes, Lindsay.

36:39.73] Does this budget involve taking any money from the general fund or reserves?

36:46.98] We did not this time. We balanced the budget completely. This is the draft budget that's

36:52.18] being delivered to City Council. The 3.81% property tax increase balances the budget

36:59.72] along with a significant number of cuts to discretionary department budgets. Yes.

37:12.74] Another one. You mentioned 10% cuts across the board on City departments. Are there

37:24.18] any examples of things that were cut? I know you mentioned the GLP ones but is there anything

37:30.38] that residents might notice no longer being available as a service?

37:31.38] Mark, what was one of the most painful cuts for the Public Works Department?

37:35.07] It was a reduction in fuel. We're thankful that we have a solid contract in place where

37:41.83] we're able to stabilize our fuel costs so we've got ahead of the curve before the prices

37:46.43] of fuel went up with having a good contract. How about Vicky? Do you have one that was

37:54.18] particularly noteworthy?

37:55.14] It would be close upon some studies and then gather more.

38:04.86] Chief.

38:07.16] I was a personnel allotment. Our total number of officers was noted. It's 232, 210. That

38:13.37] won't impact currently what we're doing. The very real reality of today is it's very

38:19.27] competitive to get officers. We're going to continue to push forward to recruit that

38:23.65] and still hold the line on the entrance requirements to get a good officer.

38:30.67] Also, I forgot to mention this. Significantly, I think that when residents receive their

38:35.52] tax bill in January, they're going to see a small increase in their property tax line.

38:41.04] They will see zero increase in their trash fee.

38:45.00] Oh, yeah.

38:46.12] Yeah. For the past couple of years, we increased our trash fee to remain solvent in the solid

38:51.28] waste fund. This year, thanks to some very good work by our friend and his department

38:56.28] and our public works department, there will be no trash increase this year. I think the

39:01.40] trash fee is $740 and so it will remain flat at $740 for 2027.

39:05.80] Yes.

39:06.80] One more, but since you mentioned brightsizing the capital investments, I know we talked

39:20.76] about the fire department, the future police department buildings. What is brightsizing

39:28.90] ? So the initial plans that were presented by the by Ally 5 working in collaboration with

39:35.87] our construction manager, we will identify places that we can trim back like a break

39:41.27] room here. Pretty small changes that have a material impact on reducing the cost of

39:47.31] the overall construction.

39:48.31] How much does that save?

39:50.65] Do you have a number? Yeah. WFMZ? You guys want to jump in?

40:08.24] Wonderful. Well, thank you all. I look forward to City Council. I look forward to a good

40:17.21] process over the next couple of months to get this budget passed. I welcome residents

40:21.29] to weigh in and share their thoughts and feelings about the budget. And just thank you again.

40:28.29] Thank you to all of our department heads, to the finance department, Frank, and especially

40:32.85] the controller's office for being good partners in this work. Thanks.