Jim Thorpe Borough officials have been able to slice a projected 1.84-mill property tax increase in 2024 down to 0.64-mills through reallocation, but utility bills are set to jump with the municipality’s first post-COVID garbage contract on the horizon.

Though no contract has been approved to date, a potential new three-year pact with Tamaqua Transfer has the garbage portion of an average residential utility bill estimated to go from $25 to $50.69 per month.

While it’s a tough pill to swallow for residents, Councilman Michael Rivkin said it’s to be expected as companies such as Tamaqua Transfer look to rebound after the pandemic.

“They were unable to adjust their billing the last several years because we were locked into a five-year contract,” Rivkin said. “This is their makeup time. They had increased labor, fuel and landfill costs from the past several years like everyone else.”

Councilman Jay Miller asked borough officials if the municipality could use sanitation reserve funds to avoid a rate increase for 2024 in an effort to “soften the blow” for residents. According to Borough Manager Maureen Sterner, however, only $100,000 would be available for that purpose if council wanted to keep at least $500,000 in reserves as has been historical preference.

“As much as I don’t like this, I think we’re lucky that the company takes everything they do,” Councilwoman Joanne Klitsch said. “I don’t want to have to take my garbage to a transfer station.”

Sterner said nothing would change as far as what and how much garbage residents are able to put out.

“What residents have to know is we are using the sanitation fund for some other things and if we took those things out and put them in the general fund, then the real estate tax millage would have to go up,” Miller said.

Council has discussed other areas of the proposed 2024 budget over the last several weeks, including the general fund, where a 0.64-mill tax increase would mean an additional $44.61, on average, on the bill of a property owner.

The increase on the borough water bill is set to be 5.75%, which came down from an original projection of 10% after a water consultant and a generator for the plant was removed from the budget.

“We’re hoping the problem at the plant is the voltage regulator,” Councilman Michael Yeastedt said. “They are going to do a load test on it. If it is a voltage regulator, that repair should get it stabilized. We are still going to get a price for a generator. The generator is in pristine shape, but the problem is its obsolete. It is hard to get parts. The concern going forward would be finding that original equipment.”

Sterner said the borough also has to begin putting money away for new water meters.

“They are getting near the end of their useful life and that is going to be a high ticket item,” she said.

The average water portion of the utility bill, she added, would increase by $3.36 in 2024.

On the sewer side of things, the borough is projecting a 2% increase, or 86 cents, to the average bill.

That small increase could be avoided if the borough reduced its cash carry-over balance from $65,014 to $42,594.

“I don’t know that for 86 cents I would want to see the reserve dug into like that,” Rivkin said. “We’re already starting to see equipment that is only 5 or 6 years old give us failure.”

Miller concurred, noting that there aren’t many cheap fixes in the water department.

“You’re not talking $20 at the hardware store when something goes wrong,” he said. “If we had a couple million in reserve then I would have an issue with 86 cents, but that isn’t the case.”

Sterner attributed a lot of the water and sewer increase to the cost of chemicals.

“They have skyrocketed,” she said. “We increased the amount we had budgeted for this year and we blew past it. It is double what we had budgeted.”

The borough spent $28,000 on chemicals in 2021, $39,000 in 2022, an estimated $62,800 for 2023 and has budgeted $72,200 for 2024.