Wyomissing 2027 Budget Would Add $578 on the Median Home

Wyomissing Borough's proposed 2027 budget, posted Monday night, raises the property tax rate by four mills, from 6.65 to 10.65, and puts the cost at $578 a year on the median residential property and $678 on the average one. Council votes tonight, Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. at Borough Hall, 22 Reading Blvd., on whether to advertise that budget and the tax ordinance that would set the rate. A mill is $1 of tax for every $1,000 of assessed value, so by our arithmetic four more mills add $400 per $100,000 of assessed value, and the full 10.65-mill rate comes to $1,065 per $100,000. Our guide explains how a Berks property tax bill is figured.

The numbers come from the 2027 Proposed Budget Message, a 37-page PDF signed by Interim Borough Manager Eden Ratliff and dated Nov. 9, linked from a news flash that day. Page numbers below are the document's own: a 15-page message, then budget tables numbered 1 to 21.

Where the four mills go

The message splits the increase three ways: 2.5 mills to fire protection, 0.5 mills to recreation and 1 mill to the General Fund (p. 10). The current 6.65 is the 5.15-mill general levy on the county's 2026 rate table plus half-mill fire, road and EMS taxes. The tables put the 2027 rates at 6.15 General Fund, 3.00 fire and 0.50 each for recreation, EMS and roads (tables, p. 1).

The fire tax does the heaviest lifting. Its revenue line goes from $512,000 to $3,108,600, and the General Fund's transfer to the fire fund shrinks from $1,953,377 to $520,090. The fire fund's budget grows from $2,643,377 to $4,406,590 (tables, p. 10), largely because career firefighters' pay moves there: the General Fund's "career firefighters" line falls from $1,487,500 to zero while the fire fund's "career FF wages" line rises from $184,500 to $1,498,163 (tables, p. 11). Fire inspection fees are budgeted at $200,000, up from $60,000 (tables, p. 10). The draft Nov. 3 minutes record "brief comment that the state has a cap on the amount of fire tax that can be generated" (packet, p. 65); the proposed fire rate is 3.00 mills. The new recreation levy is booked at $518,100, and General Fund real estate taxes rise from $5,254,000 to $6,372,700 (tables, p. 1). The message puts net real estate tax revenue across all funds at $10,823,300 (p. 12).

Surplus and reserves

The General Fund would spend $15,983,316 against $16,472,100 in revenue, a surplus of $488,784, after a restructured 2026 budget that showed a $726,836 deficit (tables, pp. 3, 10). All funds together spend $33,123,459 gross, including transfers (tables, p. 20). The police total rises from $3,559,000 to $5,783,971 as benefits move into it (tables, p. 5); the overhead the water and sewer funds pay the General Fund drops from $750,000 each to $432,000 and $443,000, and the refuse fund's share rises from $200,000 to $309,000 (tables, p. 2). The message projects a General Fund balance of $2,828,291 on Dec. 31, 2027, about 17.7 percent of spending, and calls that position "vulnerable" (p. 12).

Those figures match neither four-mill scenario council saw Nov. 3: the slide deck showed a $573,572 surplus, a $2,913,079 balance and 16.4 percent reserves (slide 10); the memo's page labeled "CORRECTED" showed $373,572, $2,713,079 and 15.2 percent (p. 3). The narrative says the budget "contemplates the issuance of municipal debt" and names no amount (p. 10), but the tables budget $3,070,963 in "proceeds - 2027 capital note" across four funds: $2,008,463 in the Capital Projects Fund, $302,500 in fire, $235,000 in water and $525,000 in sewer (tables, pp. 10, 14, 16, 17), with $69,098 of interest across the debt service, water and sewer funds ($51,997, $5,288 and $11,813) and no principal due on the new note in 2027 (tables, pp. 16, 17, 18). The Capital Projects share alone exceeds the $1,964,658 of borrowing in the memo's four-mill scenario (p. 3).

The $578 and the $534

The $578 figure is higher than the $534 in the memo council worked from Nov. 3, when it directed staff to draft a four-mill budget. That scenario table put four mills at $534 a year on the median home, "$133,500 assessed" (p. 3). The message says $578 for "the median residential property" and $678 for the average, without saying what assessed values it used (p. 12).

What was cut, and what was not

The message lists the reductions made after council's last budget hearing (p. 11): $12,000 in communications spending, $12,000 off the "S|R administrative fee," a 5 percent cut in consultant spending across the borough, the Accounts Receivable Clerk position eliminated, its work "absorbed through Transcend Finance," the Accounts Payable Clerk and Receptionist kept part-time, the Recreation Director reduced to part-time, the Deputy Fire Chief funded for six months, and $100,000 of expenses "reallocated to the Borough's utility operations." It puts the package at "an approximately $500,000 positive impact on the General Fund" (p. 11). The consultants keep their own lines: $200,000 plus $138,000 in contracted services for Stonehill Ratliff, the interim manager's firm; $185,000 plus $81,000 for Transcend Finance, the interim finance director's; and $148,000 for a "communications / marketing / PR firm contract" (tables, pp. 3, 5).

The service cuts council argued over Nov. 3 are another matter. The Nov. 2 memo proposed dropping five community events, cutting $75,000 from leaf collection and raising pool and playground fees by $90,000. The posted tables keep the five events at their 2026 amounts, $11,000 for the parade, $10,000 for concerts, $4,000 for movies, $2,500 for the Egg Hunt and $1,000 for Touch a Truck (tables, p. 9), along with pool fees at $162,000 and the $20,000 leaf materials and $55,000 leaf disposal lines. Playground fees are budgeted at $75,700, down from $82,000 and matching this year's projection (tables, p. 2), and leaf collection, moved into the General Fund from the refuse fund, carries $197,431 for labor, up from $156,000 (tables, pp. 8, 19). One event line does fall: the Fourth of July is budgeted at $32,000, down from $42,000 in this year's budget (tables, p. 9). The message's cut list does not mention the events, leaves or fees, and nothing in the document says whether council set those cuts aside.

How the borough got here

The message's own account of the deficit (p. 5): a restructuring of the 2026 General Fund found "a projected 2026 General Fund shortfall of approximately $727,000," about $1.44 million once one-time revenue, grant-funded capital spending and debt service were set aside, and "approximately $2.4 million to $2.7 million annually" after counting transfers from other funds, later "refined" to about $2.2 million, plus "approximately $725,000 to $860,000 in additional annual operating cost pressures entering 2027" (p. 7).

A note left in the draft

Page 4 carries three short paragraphs that read as the author's notes about the document itself, among them: "One important consideration for the final report: I would add specific figures demonstrating how the proposed budget changed between its earliest iterations and the most recent version. That would provide tangible evidence of the work undertaken to reduce costs, rather than merely describing the effort."

Tonight's votes and what follows

The agenda lists the two budget votes as items 8a and 8b: "Consider advertisement for the 2027 Preliminary Borough Operating Budgets" and "Consider advertisement of the proposed 2027 Tax Ordinance." Advertising opens the public inspection period before the final vote; the tax ordinance is the local law that sets the millage. The 114-page packet, posted Nov. 6, holds the draft Nov. 3 minutes and the library's 2027 budget (pp. 94-95) but no borough budget document and no tax ordinance text; the message is the only borough budget document posted for tonight, the newest item on the 2027 Budget page.

Council voted 4-3 on Nov. 3 to have staff draft the budget at four mills, per the draft minutes in the packet, which name Councilmembers Richard A. Weinhoffer, Stephen D. Brunner and Christopher F. Valente as the no votes (p. 65). The borough's budget calendar then lists a Budget Town Hall on Wednesday, Dec. 2, "to discuss proposed preliminary budget," time "TBA," and a special meeting Tuesday, Dec. 15, "to adopt the preliminary budget as final for 2027."

Before the budget votes, council holds hearings on three ordinances, each followed by a vote to adopt or approve it: 1464-2026, the C2 overlay rewrite for the Berkshire Mall site, which we covered in a separate preview; and 1465-2026 and 1466-2026, landscaping rules for the zoning and subdivision ordinances (agenda, items 5a-5f). Public comment comes after the hearings, limited to "agenda items," and again near the end for "agenda or non-agenda items" (items 6 and 11).