SLIPPERY ROCK — Borough council next month will vote to approve its 2015 budget, which will not feature a tax increase.

On Tuesday night, the council voted unanimously to advertise a $1.2 million budget with a property tax rate of 21.875 mills, with 18.71 mills for general purposes, 2 mills for street lighting and 1.165 mills for fire protection.

A mill generates $1 in revenue for every $1,000 of a property’s assessed value.

Initially, Councilman Regina Greenwald, who helped to work on the budget, made a few modifications to the budget, which showed the borough with a $18,050 surplus.

She suggested a couple of ways to allocate the extra money, specifically mentioning spending $16,600 to bring in Professional Code Services, the company that does code enforcement for the borough, for an extra half day per week or spending $8,670 to get a new phone system for the borough building.

Council President Dave Miller noted that the issue is that there is not enough money to get both.

Councilman Itzi Meztli made his own suggestions, which included giving more money to the Slippery Rock Volunteer Fire Company and Slippery Rock In Bloom. He also suggested cutting the solicitor’s budget by $25,000.

Greenwald initially cut the solicitor’s budget by $10,000, from $45,000 per year to $35,000.

Meztli said that there is a lot of “waste” in the borough’s solicitor costs. He said this would lead to an additional $19,000 surplus, the equivalent of 1 mill in the borough. He suggested cutting taxes by a mill.

Council Vice President Ron Steele said, when he first came on council, it voted to cut taxes by one mill.

He said it took the borough five to six years to recover financially.

He also felt that $10,000 would not be enough for the solicitor. Greenwald noted that $10,000 would only allow for an hour of law services per week.

“I’m uncomfortable with that,” Greenwald said.

Miller said he was against cutting the solicitor’s budget because of the amount of money spent due to lawsuits and other legal matters in years past.

He also noted the good work the borough solicitor has done, saying that good work now can lead to saving money down the road.

Council decided to keep Greenwald’s proposed $10,000 cut to the solicitor’s budget. It also decided to spend the $16,600 on the extra half day for Professional Code Services. The remaining $1,450 will go to the fire company.

Meztli also said he was uncomfortable with the borough’s budgeting process and said he was concerned that it appeared that the borough had more than $1.8 million in funds rather than $1.2 million, saying that savings and reserve funds were shown in the budget report but not declared a part of the budget.

Miller said that the $700,000 in reserves and savings are not expenses and are not revenues, so they are not included in the working budget.

He said that those figures are available to the public.

“It’s always been out there,” Miller said.

The proposed budget will be available for public review starting Monday.

Council will vote on the budget Dec. 16.

The current budget is $1.1 million with the same tax rate.