Carbon County will need to pay more in interest following its credit rating drop.

A letter to the county treasurer from S&P Global Ratings states that the county’s credit rating was lowered from AA to AA- and the outlook moved from stable to negative.

Commissioner Wayne Nothstein, who had warned previous administrations that running down the county’s fund balance would have negative impacts in the future, spoke about the downgraded credit rating.

He said that it affects the county’s loaning ability by increasing the interest rates the county would pay on loans.

“The county simply does not have the fund balance that it had at one time, so it is going to really cost the county additional funds because we don’t have the fund balance,” Nothstein said last week. “We will have to pay higher interest when we have to borrow. We will not have the funds available that we had last year from the capital funds.

“It doesn’t look good for the parking lot fund. I don’t think we’re going to have a whole lot left in there until the end of the years. So it’s going to affect us big time.”

Nothstein said there was a combination of things that led to the credit rating drop, including having some issues getting reports on the audits and the fund balance being used paired with the debt the county already has.

The recommended amount of fund balance a county should have is approximately 25%, Nothstein said, but “we are far below that now.”

Over the last few years, the fund balance was used to offset tax increases. During that time, Nothstein had warned against using the fund balance instead of raising taxes slightly.

“The fund balance was spent down and now we’re in trouble,” he said.

On Tuesday, county Treasurer Kevin Zelienka said that the fund balance for the general fund currently stood at $12,784,014.38.

Neither Commissioner Rocky Ahner, who sat on the previous administration, nor Chairman Michael Sofranko, who joined the board in January, commented on the matter.