NORTHUMBERLAND — Borough Council members Tuesday gave final approval to their $1.3 million no-tax-hike budget for 2010 and spent a few minutes of their last meeting together thanking each other for dedicated service.

Two or three members are leaving the board. Darvin Straub, Bob Long and Bryan Wolfe did not run for re-election. Wolfe, however, has submitted an application to be considered for the vacancy created by Jonathan Reese winning both 2-year and 4-year terms.

“I did a lot of soul searching and put my name in for another two years,” Wolfe said. He is a 10-year veteran of the board.

Three others want the job as well. They are Adam Klock, who was defeated in the election, but garnered 47 percent of the vote; T.G. Fasold; and John Simeone.

Mayor Gretchen Brosius handed out framed certificates to the departing members. She said she created the “Mayoral Certificate of Excellence.”

The council had a more practical thank-you for street Superintendent Tom Slodysko: a $1,000 bonus. The council unanimously agreed that Slodysko regularly saves the borough money by fixing things himself and volunteering his time.

The bonus motion passed 6-1, however, with Councilman Frank Wetzel voting no. He said a lot of employees give their time to assist the borough, and if the council members couldn’t do an across-the-board bonus, they shouldn’t do one.

Brosius read the following message she is sending in her Christmas cards from a devotional’s Dec. 15 entry, but found it a struggle to keep emotion from taking her voice:

“Sometimes we feel as if success or failure is all up to us,” she read. “But part of faith ... is trusting the community to contribute what the next moment needs. We are not self-sufficient; we are designed to rely on one another, to create together what we cannot create individually. When we offer what we can, however small or unfinished, help will come; and we will discover a new and deeper love and appreciation of God and our neighbors.”