The Bethlehem City Council Finance Committee held its first meeting of 2026 on February 3, 2026, to review and recommend approval of ten budgetary and grant-related items. The meeting, chaired by a committee member, featured presentations from department heads including the police chief, fire chief, health director, community and economic development director, water and sewer director, and the budget and finance director. All items were voted on as a group and recommended for approval to the full City Council.
On the phone or meet in person at any time. This first finance meeting there is usually a busy one. You'll see there are 10 items. We made an attempt to control that number. There are some others that we did put a hold on. But what that does mean is we will be requesting another finance meeting sometime sooner than later. Uh the reason for the first is uh you know the clear fact it's beginning of the year. We want to reconcile some from some accounts when we set the capital budget for the uh budget season, it's September. We take cuts at 930. So numbers that you see at budget time for the most part, unless it was um through a discussion through the particular department. The default position is we use that 930 number rather than trying to guess or project, which some places do, we use a 930. Uh, and then this time of year, we need to reconcile whether we use all of it or more or less of it. That's what our what number 10. And that that's a bit of an extensive one in and of itself. And on then on top of that, uh, since our last meeting has been two months because it's a new council committees were set. So that we appreciate you being with us tonight. We have 10 items for you. I'm gonna handle one and two, police will do three, fire chief will do four and five. We have our health director for number six, CED for number seven and nine, water sewer for eight, and our director of budget and finance will kind of lead number 10. So we have almost just about every department represented tonight. Member memo number one is a year end adjustment. And what memo one is doing is tying the actual usage from three accounts and 0901. Those are the community recovery funded down, the homeless initiative and affordable housing from what was at 930 to what the actual use was, and you'll see some somewhere a little bit lower. And on top of that, there's a separate 0901 in there, 95012 downtown initiative. And I'll take you back to September. In September, we added 150,000 to this account at finance committee, or may have gone. No, it didn't go directly to council. It was a finance committee where we discussed it and moved 150 into the count. That was accumulated savings. It was money that was not spent over a period of several years in the downtown initiative. And that the plan for that money and what was voted on at that time was that money would be then spent sent to Moravian University. They uh with regard to World Heritage, they took on the responsibility responsibilities of hiring a project or our site coordinator. And um the part or the um pledge from the city was 150,000. So that's what was voted on. Um, the year ran out before that invoice. They're still working through some logistical steps as they bring that into fruition. The coordinator was hired. You may have met her at this time or since then. Um, but there are several groups working, including the university, including the city, including historic Bethham Partnership. And uh because it got past the check time that 150 was not spent. This is simply moving into this year's budget. So that 150 that was voted on can indeed be sent to Maraven University for the items that we that we talked about last fall. So that's memo one. Thank you, Mr. Evans. Mr. Eamon, do you have a question? No, sir. Mr. Evans, the only question I have, and just as we start our first uh finance committee meeting, as you referenced, grab another one soon.