Harrisburg City Council on Monday night

Harrisburg City Council approved a 2026 city budget while zeroing out top officials’ salaries, denying raises and highlighting the deep divide between council and the mayor.

At a meeting Monday night, council passed the $88 million general fund budget, rejecting a proposal by Mayor Wanda Williams to raise her and other elected officials’ salaries and eliminating other staff’s salaries.

The budget does not include a property tax increase.

Most of the budget discussions and changes on Monday centered around salaries and council’s dissatisfaction with the work of several staff and elected officials.

Previously, the administration proposed a $20,000 raise to the mayor’s current $80,000 salary, along with raises for council, controller and treasurer. Each would have received a raise at the start of their next term, a legal requirement. However, council voted against the raises by a vote of 5-2, with council members Crystal Davis and Ausha Green voting in favor.

“I can count the number of times Mayor Williams called this council incompetent under my leadership, and she wants a raise? No,” said council President Danielle Hill. “I feel very strongly that instead of a raise, the mayor, her administration and Harrisburg City Council should focus their energy on the number of issues present within our city.”

Additional council members said that they voted ‘no’ based on input from residents and a desire to see the money go to what they believed were more pressing needs.

The other major changes to the budget included council completely eliminating salaries for the city’s interim business administrator, project director for business administration/LERTA and the police bureau’s director of community engagement and relations. Council also zeroed out the city’s portion of the salary for the interim director of building and housing development, which supplements the portion of the salary funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Council members decided to defund the business administrator, Sam Sulkosky, and director of building and housing, Gloria Martin-Roberts, mainly because they had been serving in interim positions without council approval.

Sulkosky was appointed in October 2024, but council voted against approving him in his role in February, citing concerns with his employment history. Since then, he has continued serving, now as an interim director.

Martin-Roberts was appointed by the mayor in 2024 as an interim director after the previous building and housing director left.

“The process isn’t fair,” council member Lamont Jones said. “This is personal that our residents get what they deserve. When you’re in a position of leadership you have to be held accountable.”

Council removed funding for the project director for business administration/LERTA, explaining that they were unhappy with the lack of work being done, specifically around an economic development plan for the city. When it came to the police position, council members said they believed the position was redundant.

Council also made a motion to remove funds for the director of equity and compliance, citing dissatisfaction with the role, but the motion failed.

“I’m not quite sure where it would go from there because then it starts pulling apart the city code, for example, with the business administrator, what do you do because they have statutory duties,” said City Solicitor Neil Grover. “By defunding it, you are basically eliminating the position. But frankly, I don’t know why anybody’s going to apply to my office or any other office if the city of Harrisburg and the council defunds positions of existing employees.”

Sulkosky shared his reaction to the decision with TheBurg as well.

“I just think it was a short-sighted effort for council, not the entire council, but a small majority to micromanage what the mayor does, which I think is highly inappropriate,” Sulkosky said. “It does not help the city of Harrisburg at all.”

When speaking with TheBurg, Hill stressed that the position had been defunded, not eliminated, but was unsure what that would mean for the role moving forward.

“I don’t know the mechanics of it. We are not involved in the hiring process so I can’t speak to that,” she said. ”I really can’t speak to what happens next.”

Council passed the 2026 budget with a vote of 6-1, with council member Shamaine Daniels voting no.

The total proposed budget, including the capital projects fund, state liquid fuels fund and neighborhood services fund, among others, is $127.3 million.

City Accounting Manager Brian McCutcheon also shared the projected end of year cash fund balance, which would likely be $21 million in the general fund reserves and $5.5 million in the neighborhood services fund reserves by the end of this month.

According to council’s clerks, the mayor has 10 days to return council a signed budget, making the deadline Dec. 26. Williams does have the power to veto the budget or specific line items. Council would likely then return for a session on Dec. 30 or 31 to reconsider the budget, the assistant clerk said. A vote of five or more council members would be needed to overturn the mayor’s veto.

The meeting showcased the divide between council and the mayor. Three council members revealed that they believed their cell phones were blocked by Williams, meaning that she could call them, but they were automatically sent to voicemail.

They also said that department directors and staff had been banned from communicating with them.

“It is not us,” Hill said. “We are here. We try to communicate. But if you’re blocked on someone’s phone and that’s the method of communication, what do you do?”

Sulkosky said that the mayor has an open-door policy and has invited the council president to meet her.

“She’s blaming the mayor for not communicating, but I would say that’s a two-way street,” he said.

Also on Monday, council approved a land development plan by Harristown Development Corp. to renovate 333 Market Street, a 22-story building downtown that previously housed state government offices. Harristown will renovate floors 11 through 19 and create 81 one- and two-bedroom apartments, which it intends to use for senior housing. The company is currently in search of an organization to master lease the apartments.

At a previous meeting, council voted the plan down in a tied vote, before deciding to bring the resolution back up for reconsideration and tabling it.

Council ended up passing the development plan with a vote of 5-2. Council President Danielle Hill and council member Crystal Davis voted ‘no.’

“My concern lies with the lack of information regarding the third party that will be involved,” Hill said.

Council on Monday also voted to extend the city’s lease agreement with the Broad Street Market Alliance for another year. The city and market have been operating on a month-to-month lease since its current lease expired in 2021. The approved extension was initiated because the market is required to have an up-to-date lease for state funding it was awarded.

In other news, council voted to extend the city’s LERTA program, which provides tax break incentives to developers. City officials have said that they drafted a new, updated LERTA bill, but are waiting for the Harrisburg School District to review it.

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