Greenville Borough Council adopted a 2002 budget Thursday that hikes taxes 24 percent and transfers $208,839 from a bond issue reserved for a borough project into the general fund.

Shortly before the budget passed, dozens of people stormed out of the Greenville High School lecture hall in a rage, behind one angry resident who was escorted out by police.

The $3.06 million budget sets property taxes at 31.5 mills.

A mill is $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value. At 31.5 mills, a property assessed at $15,000 carries a tax bill of $472.

The $15,000 property carried a tax bill of $380 last year, $330 in 2000 and $280 in 1999.

Council moved bond money into its general fund to keep the borough afloat until tax dollars start pouring in later this year.

"We have to keep the lights on, pay salaries and so forth before the tax money starts coming in," said borough solicitor Warren Keck III.

Keck has said past use of the bond money for general spending was "unauthorized."

About a quarter of the $3.67 million bond has been used or budgeted to cover day-to-day expenses since the bond was issued in 2000. The bond was designated as the local share of a recreation and revitalization project.

While the borough used $667,000 of the bond for general purposes during the past two years, council had never budgeted the bond transfers until this year.