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READING — City Council members no longer have access to taxpayer money to hold community events or meetings, and will instead need to solicit private donations if they want to maintain their current level of engagement.
Council members collectively spent more than $28,000 for events in 2024 and 2025, an amount they deemed unsustainable moving forward and cut from the 2026 budget as Reading faces a growing structural deficit.
While city policy has encouraged council members to seek private financial sponsorships for public events for several years, there are no specific guardrails to prevent conflicts of interest.
Sponsorships also can create transparency concerns, a government ethics expert told Spotlight PA. Funds coming directly from city coffers require tracking that private dollars do not. Instead, sponsors normally are listed on event flyers or similar advertisements unless the city takes extra steps to provide more information.
Reading’s ethics policy includes rules for officials receiving gifts and avoiding conflicts of interest, but they are more tailored toward preventing individual gain than overseeing community projects.
Delaney Marsco, ethics director with the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center, said sponsorships generally should be avoided because they can be seen as problematic, especially in smaller communities where businesses and local governments closely entwine. For example, a restaurant may donate food one day, and later contact Council about a zoning issue.
In Congress, members receive public money to host town hall meetings and travel to their districts to engage with constituents. Representatives can supplement this with their own money, but they cannot take from corporations or solicit sponsorships in those instances, Marsco said.
“For what I would hope is kind of obvious reasons, which is, it’s a clear way to try and curry favor,” Marsco said of that rule. “It’s an obvious way to try and secure improper influence with a public official.”
Sponsorships can also give the impression of an endorsement, she said. Community members may think that if the city uses a particular company, it must be reputable, which could unintentionally hurt other businesses without the ability to donate time, food, or money, she said.
However, sponsorships do not inherently indicate bad intentions, Marsco said. In smaller, less-funded cities, she said, there could be considerations to be made.
“Maybe there’s a process that can be followed that would be transparent and would provide the public with kind of a clear picture of why this is allowed, but kind of a blanket allowance of allowing people to solicit corporate sponsorships and accept corporate sponsorships without very clear procedures and transparency factors in place raises ethics concerns,” Marsco said.
City Council also voted to take away similar funding from Reading Mayor Eddie Morán. Managing Director Jack Gombach told Spotlight PA he expects the mayor’s administration to roll out a new set of internal guidelines for sponsorships over the next few months, especially without the city-backed funds as a base. Those changes would then need to be appropriately communicated to residents to increase public trust, he said.
How did Council spend $28,000 in 2 years?
Spotlight PA reviewed the invoices and receipts each council member submitted for 2024 and 2025. The newsroom found that some spent most of their allotment to hold a single district event, donated to a nonprofit’s event, or spread the amount between a series of district meetings.
Purchases ranged from dumpster rentals and doughnuts to balloon-twisting and pop-up facepainting stands at block parties. Some receipts included handwritten notes noting a separate group had paid for portions of the total. Other event flyers or Facebook posts showed what community organizations contributed, but there were no receipts from those groups included in the city’s recordkeeping for Council events.
Marsco, the ethics expert, said reasonable spending on events is not unusual, but she was unfamiliar with the practice in Reading in which council members donate to nonprofits. Councilors donated to several outside events, such as sponsoring a 5K race, giving hot dogs and buns to a Jeep club event, and supporting a housing community Easter egg hunt, for example.
The best solution is to be clear about the rules, she said, recommending the city potentially even listing the acceptable nonprofits that would be appropriate to receive funds.
“The ability to give [event funds] to a nonprofit isn’t on its face a way that would serve the purpose of being a council person and doing community outreach,” Marsco said.
Each council member had $2,500 in 2024 and $3,500 in 2025 to spend on their choice of event supplies or local groups. Guidelines were broad, and choices on how to use the funds largely remained at the discretion of each councilor.
Those choices offer a glimpse into councilors’ priorities and constituent communication strategies.
The City Council handbook “strongly encourages” members to find local sponsorships or in-kind donations for events to limit the amount of expended taxpayer dollars. In 2024 and 2025, the policy resulted in a combination of financial sources.
The events could not be political, include fundraising, or benefit a councilor directly, the guidelines stipulate. The city dollars could be used on any part of the event or community promotion.
District 2 Councilor Jaime Baez, Jr., former District 4 Councilor Wes Butler, and District 1 Councilor Vanessa Campos were the top spenders in 2024. Almost all council members spent the full allotted amounts in 2025.
In 2025, Baez spent the bulk of his portion on his annual Party at the Park event, with private sponsors donating backpacks for students returning to school. Butler donated $2,500 to the Camel Project, an anti-bullying group, for its ChalkPalooza event and the remaining $1,000 for his district’s College Manor Pool party. Campos’ spending was mixed: She donated to various nonprofits’ events, while also spending on food, invitations, and entertainment for district programming.
District 6 Councilor Chris Miller split the funds between entertainment for his district’s 6th Ward Block Party, a donation to Centre Park Historic District, and a backpack giveaway. District 5 Councilor Rafael Nuñez split his portion between a contribution to Barrio Alegría and a toy giveaway.
Both Miller and Baez, who each spent a chunk of their funding on a block party-style event, said they still held smaller community meetings during the year and used the larger parties as a chance for nonprofits and resource organizations to set up tables and educate attendees.
District 3 Councilor Melissa Ventura took the most unique approach among her colleagues, using about half of her portion on community dumpster days, where residents could discard heavy trash. She spent the remaining funds on a turkey giveaway around Thanksgiving. Without the council funds, she said, she will need to find other ways to offer district events other than community meetings.
“I like to provide the service honestly and give back,” Ventura told Spotlight PA.
Who will pay the bill for city events moving forward?
Council members ultimately split in a vote of 4-3 (with Baez, Ventura, and Nuñez voting against) to remove the event funding at the final budget meeting in December, and continued to disagree over who should foot the upcoming event bills.
Miller, who initially proposed eliminating the funding, said he hopes the city will be in a financial position to bring it back in the next few years. In the meantime, he suggested finding community sponsors when appropriate.
Baez voted against removing the funding, telling Spotlight PA he supports sponsorships but worries community groups will be overrun with requests for donations, which will make it more challenging for council members to find sponsors. He argued that even for small meetings, offering food or other incentives encourages community members to participate.
Council President Donna Reed was against providing city money for events when the practice started in 2023, and opposed any of the money going to her position, she said. She advocated for a return to free or low-cost potluck-style meetings or attending existing group meetings in each district.
Each of the council members who spoke with Spotlight PA agreed that sponsorships could be appropriate when vetting the possibility of conflicts of interest.
Regardless of the approach, Council has the option to update its own handbook each year and dictate how members can approach finding and documenting outside funding.
The mayor’s office has a different administrative code and way of addressing community events, but it also accepts private sponsors. Morán’s annual Three Kings Day celebration and toy giveaway this month, for example, had Customers Bank as the primary sponsor, according to the Reading Eagle. Other sponsors included DoubleTree by Hilton Reading, TK’s Toy Box, Axcess Industries, Savage Auto Group, Matos Towing & Recovery, La Mega, Reading Recreation Commission, and Reading Parking Authority.
Gombach, speaking on behalf of the mayor’s administration, said he would like to use the pause in event funding to craft a policy that encourages transparency. Flyers and promotional materials, for instance, need to make clear if an event was held by the city, for a campaign, or as a recreational event, he said. He did not believe private dollars should be used on events where the goal is to educate the community on city matters.
“If we’re talking something a little bit more social in nature, more neighborhood, bringing people together, block parties help foster a sense of neighborhood and togetherness, I think that’s a little bit more appropriate, but it’s definitely a grey zone,” Gombach said.
Marsco suggested the city create clear guidelines on when sponsors are allowed and for what purpose. And for each event it should specify why certain sponsors were selected, how much money was donated, and what the money purchased, she said, plus make receipts available to the public for inspection.
Gombach said the administration aims to work with internal and outside auditors in the coming months to draft a new internal policy and encourage City Council to consider how to improve its guidelines.
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