The Lehigh County Board of Commissioners tabled a bill that would have given $1.06 million to local park improvement projects at its Dec. 12 meeting. The Green Futures Fund Program, which was approved by voters in a non-binding referendum in 2002, would have given $324,693 to Allentown for the Martin Luther King Trail, $238,000 to Lower Macungie and $231,888 to Upper Saucon Township for the Saucon Rail Trail.

The program would have also given money to projects in Salisbury Township, Emmaus and Bethlehem. Opposition to the program was met primarily from the board's more conservative members.

"This seems to me like a bunch of nice to have projects, but we already have a multi-million dollar deficit on our hands," Commissioner Scott Ott said. "It seems to me like a bad management plan."

Commissioner Vic Mazziotti agreed with Ott and said these sort of projects are not the board's "core responsibility."

"The question is, what is our core responsibility?" Mazziotti said. "We're not raising significant revenue to do this job."

Commissioner David Jones supported the bill and said it is the board's job to execute the will of the voters.

Commissioner Percy Dougherty acknowledged the board needed to make cuts, but agreed with Jones the board has a commitment to support the project based on the will of the voters. He also noted money for the projects would not be paid all at once, but over a number of years.

A motion to table the bill for discussion at a later date was made by Commissioner Michael Schware. The Commissioners voted 5-4 in favor of the tabling of the bill.

The board also had its first reading of a bill proposed by Commissioner Daniel McCarthy raising the county executive's salary to $127,500 starting in 2014.

The county executive is currently paid $75,000 a year. McCarthy said the increase is intended to attract the "best candidates" for the job.

"We're always told that we should run the government more like a business," McCarthy said.

Dougherty said he would not pay the county executive "one penny more" and said he is in favor of reforming the system to have a county manager, whom the board would have control over hiring and firing. Dougherty's call for reformation was supported by Mazziotti.

"We need to take whatever steps we need to take to put that before the voters," Mazziotti said.

Schware said he was unsure how the county would pay for the increased salary and said the county executive's pay is not tied to performance.

"We can't give a bonus for a good job or a cut for a bad job," Schware said.

McCarthy said he would also consider looking into a county manager system, but does not think that a change will take place before his proposed bill would go into effect. The bill will be voted on at the next commissioners meeting 7:30 p.m. Dec. 19 in Room 111 of the Government Center in Allentown.