Lansford Borough Council has prepared a 2016 budget that is balanced and keeps taxes at current levels.

But because of some disagreement among officials over the state law regarding the advertising of the budget, they have to wait another two weeks to pass it.Borough council held its regular monthly meeting Wednesday night.President Martin Ditsky said that the 2016 budget was ready for adoption. The $1,519,741 spending plan includes a 0.5-mill general fund tax increase, bringing the tax rate to 33.53.But board member Thomas Vadyak said that the proposed budget was not ready because it had not been made available to the public for 30 days.The board finalized its proposed budget at a meeting Nov. 18.Solicitor Michael Greek said that the proposed budget only needs to be advertised for 10 days. Vadyak pointed him to a section of the Pennsylvania Borough Code that seems to be vague, and actually mentioned both numbers. According to the borough code, the proposed budget must be advertised for 10 days, but it must also be created more than 30 days in advance.So council members agreed to set a meeting for Dec. 22 - which is more than 30 days after they finished the proposed budget.Vadyak was pleased with the decision.Council members also agreed to pay engineering bills related to a large streetscaping grant so that they are paid before the end of the year.They voted to pay about $10,000 in invoices from Keystone Consulting Engineers related to the streetscaping grant.The bills dated back to June-August 2015.Nonprofit Lansford Alive procured the $275,000 streetscaping grant earlier this year.The borough picked up the bill for the engineering work so the project could be bid. However, council members said Wednesday that those bids came back at nearly $750,000 - meaning it had to be rebid.According to borough secretary Mary Fittos, council has spent about $30,000 on the project.Councilwoman Rose Mary Cannon suggested that she would like to see Lansford Alive pay some of the engineering bills, but that she didn't think it was likely that they would do so.