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Crafton Borough presents balanced 2026 draft budget with no tax increase
Summary
Crafton Borough presented a draft 2026 budget it described as ballot-balanced with no tax increase, keeping the tax rate at 8.59 mills while adjusting line items and preserving discretionary funds of roughly $104,603. Officials noted temporary bond-fund cashflow gaps pending a grant payment.
Crafton Borough on Wednesday reviewed a draft 2026 budget the presenter described as balanced and without a proposed tax increase. Speaker 1 told the workshop the borough would keep taxes at 8.59 mills and direct those mills into the general fund for 2026.
The presenter laid out high-level fund totals: a general fund of about $6,825,000, a bond project fund near $6,775,000, a solar fund around $2.9 million and a road fund of roughly $407,000. He said discretionary spending available for allocation was about $104,603.
Officials warned the bond fund could run briefly negative while the borough awaits grant proceeds tied to the C20 (Zubin Street) project. "We have not received our first payments for C20 yet," Speaker 1 said, adding staff expects a check to be cut in the first week of December that would restore the bond fund. Speaker 2 confirmed the borough could manage short-term negative balances and noted the borough had already borrowed $100,000 from the road fund and expected to repay it when grant funds arrive.
Budget staff described a series of line-item adjustments incorporated after October actuals were posted, including raising building repairs to $30,000, adding a $5,000 camera subscription line, trimming military-banner revenue and expense lines, and correcting a duplicated salary entry that had inflated personnel costs by about $80,000.
Councilors discussed whether to pay a small set of items from the general budget instead of the bond fund to preserve bond capacity for future projects; Speaker 1 said shifting $30,000–$40,000 would not materially change near-term cashflow but would leave more bond dollars for later work. The finance committee was scheduled to meet the next day and the formal approval meeting is two weeks away.
