HARMONY — The borough council has opted to move forward with a 2015 budget that will keep taxes the same.

Council voted Tuesday to adopt a tentative $551,620 budget and is expected to give its final approval at its Dec. 2 meeting.

The budget calls for a property tax rate of 11.085 mills and 1.125 for fire service.

Councilman Don Sims made a presentation on the budget which he said is designed to be conservative and does not have many significant changes from this year.

However, one proposed change is the borough’s annual donation to the Zelienople Community Library. That will decrease from $5,200 to $500.

Though council could still consider donating additional money next year, it wants to prioritize its expenses, Sims said.

“Like with any budget it’s hard to make everybody happy, but I’d rather pay our bills than not,” he said.

The budget that council adopted does not include $20,000 to hire a part-time borough manager or $10,000 for curbs and parking lots, which the budget committee had suggested council consider.

Sims said the borough wants to look at upgrading its accounting software for budget development and try to post budget and financial information on the borough website.

“That way you can all look online at your ledger and see how your monies are being spent instead of wondering at the end of the year ‘what did we spend our money on?’” he said.

Also at the meeting, council accepted the resignation of former council President Jim Hulings.

Greg Such, who ran the meeting in Hulings’ absence, said council plans to appoint a new member Dec. 2 and to hold a reorganization meeting in January to determine its next president.

“Jim served us well for two-plus years. He put his heart and soul into it, that’s for sure. We didn’t always agree with him, but he did a lot of good things for the borough,” Such said.