Zelienople Borough Council voted unanimously Monday night to approve the 2023 projected budget, which totals $12,174,632 and includes a 3.22% tax increase from last year.

The borough’s 2022 budget was $11,794,949.

Borough manager Don Pepe said Zelienople’s 2022 incorporation of the parks and recreation department — which was not previously under the borough’s management — accounted for the largest difference between budgets.

It is at this time impossible to say what these changes will look like as a breakdown of line items, but further information will soon become available at the borough’s office, library and website, finance director Erin Norton said.

The borough also raised the millage on real estate taxes from 1 to 1.57 to better fund the Zelienople Area Public Library, which serves Zelienople, Harmony and Jackson and Lancaster townships.

The value of a mill, which varies by municipality, rose from 2021 to 2022, resulting in an increase from $29,115 to $29,290 in collected funds from property owners to fund the library. An increase on millage for real estate taxes from 1 to 1.57 should translate into $46,378 of revenue for the library in the 2023 projected budget, the council estimates.

Pepe said the council made adjustments to help offset the new parks and recreation costs.

“It’s really a very modest increase from one year to the next,” Pepe said. “All of the particular services are pretty standard.”

“I think that what we’ve done in terms of the budget preparation for this, staff-wise and council-wise, has been really, really good,” he said. “I think what you have here is a very substantial and very solid budget.”

Harmony resident Eric DiTullio spoke, opposed to the proposed ordinances on rental inspections for residential and commercial properties, which would require landlords to receive licenses before renting properties. Applications for these licenses would need to include descriptions of rentals, owners’ names, contact information and other content.

“This is the ordinance you’re tying us to,” said Patrick Murray, a property manager whose Murray Agency is based in Zelienople. “Like I’ve said, it’s very ambiguous — ‘cracks in the foundations,’ ‘peeling paint.’”

He said he doubted whether the borough had a huge problem with upkeep to improve public safety and prevent fires.

“If it wasn’t for the investors in this town, Main Street would not be as nice as it is today,” he said. “We have put hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially in the last couple of years, into this town. We take good care of our properties.”

He said the upgrades that the ordinance will require landlords to meet will ultimately force them to raise rents on tenants to make up those costs.

“We’re going to have to go in, get rid of the tenants if it’s major stuff,” he said. “That apartment is not coming back. Unfortunately, this is going to have an adverse impact on most of the lower-income or lower-rent properties that are in this town, because they probably aren’t the ones that are in the top shape.”