HOLLIDAYSBURG — Borough residents may see their first property tax hike in more than five years as borough council members mulled a potential millage increase in order to combat rising costs.

During a Tuesday evening budget workshop, Borough Manager Ethan Imhoff said the six parks directly owned by the borough require a $250,000 investment to bring them up to modern standards.

More than half of the current parks were built in a short window during the mid-1990s through early 2000s, Imhoff said, inadvertently creating a “maintenance timebomb” as their upkeep costs all aligned at the same time.

This issue is exacerbated by rising inflation rendering the currently allocated funding for park upkeep increasingly ineffective.

A hypothetical $10,000 investment in park maintenance went a lot further a decade ago, while its real value has shrunk post-pandemic, he said.

The current millage rate sits at 3.55 mills for every $100,000 in assessed property value, which has not changed in over five years, according to Finance Director Stacy Wert.

Newly elected Mayor Chad Repko and council member Clay Gingrich both expressed support for the park investment, with Repko calling the network of parks “vital” to the borough community.

The projected budget for 2026 shows an anticipated revenue of $4,019,939.43 to cover $3,958,906.76 in expenses, leaving a $61,032.67 surplus.

While this amount indicates the stable financial position of the borough, it will not be enough to cover the required park projects or a range of other big ticket projects on the horizon, officials said.

Imhoff said he recently received a quote for $180,000 to completely replace the roof of the municipal building, which would be another major capital expense.

The borough’s parking meters are now “obsolete,” Wert said, with replacement parts now impossible to find, so some sort of modern digital parking payment system is another capital expense on the horizon.

Hollidaysburg currently has a healthy capital reserve, Imhoff said, but these projects could benefit from some degree of new revenue to help offset the costs.

One idea raised was a reworked fee schedule for parking meters and parking tickets in the borough.

Currently, tickets for simple infractions such as overrunning a parking meter are set at $5, Imhoff said, a figure that has not been revisited in more than a decade.

Council President Sean Burke expressed his support for reassessing the fee schedule, but cautioned that there is a point of diminishing returns if the rates are increased haphazardly.

If the cost to park in downtown Hollidaysburg is too high, it will discourage visitors and residents from parking in town, which would be overall counterproductive to the goal of raising revenue through the parking payment system, he said.

Gingrich said that a carefully considered increase of the property tax millage may be necessary to deliver the needed funding.

He said that residents may be upset if the rate is raised in successive budget years, so one larger increase may be a more appropriate action.

Imhoff said that the council could decide to raise the millage in the 2026 budget to pay for the park projects, then lower the rate the following year.

The council discussed the best method and structure for a potential millage increase, but decided to defer to a second budget workshop to be held an hour before the next regularly scheduled council meeting on November 13. The workshop will begin at 6 p.m., followed by the 7 p.m. regular meeting.

The budget, if approved preliminarily during the upcoming meeting, would go on public review for 30 days ahead of a final adoption vote in December.