The City of Williamsport has been recommended what is known as a “bridge” budget plan over the next two years, a way to give time to ideas to reduce costs and reintroduce voters and taxpayers to a Home Rule charter option.

“You have an amount of cash on hand,” said Gordon Mann, managing director, Public Financial Management Group, a Philadelphia-based firm that is assisting the city with its strategic management plan.

The goal is to see the city become less reliant on this cash, so it does not have to borrow money to fund operations early in the year, he explained ahead of Thursday’s first reading of the 2026 proposed budget.

What began as an estimated $4.8 million deficit heading into next year has dropped to $1.4 million with a half-mill real estate tax increase.

The idea is to use about $2.2 million of cash on hand to reduce the deficit over these years.

“Our thinking was we have to make it last two years,” Mann said.

As it holds down the deficit with the tax increase, use of cash, and reductions based on staff structure — such as elimination of the police assistant chief position — council members have also been touting the benefits of pursuing switching to a Home Rule charter form of government.

Home Rule was proposed eight years ago and voted down, but these are different times when property tax increases can no longer be the only means to which city governments continually tap into for meeting balanced budgets.

Altoona, Hazleton and Lancaster switched to Home Rule.

“We think you need to do it next year but we know it takes time,” Mann said of the Home Rule proposal, which could, if approved by voters, result in the city obtaining more revenue through increases in earned income tax as opposed to continually relying on flat or stagnant property tax revenue and having to raise real estate tax to meet operational needs.