The Lehighton Borough Council members had questions this week about the bills to be paid. There were 13 pages of bills, and the total amount of bills to be paid was $1,177,208.46.

“Is there a way to point out why it’s so much,” Council Member Autumn Abelovsky asked.

“Typically, what’s in front of you is very small,” Borough Manager Dane DeWire explained; “but, Cathy (Smith, Treasurer) has been out the last week and a half, so the bills presented in this meeting are a little higher than normal.”

The biggest bill, however, was a $464,000 bill from PennDOT, the borough’s portion of the bill for the Route 443 corridor project, when they widened the highway along what is called Blakeslee Boulevard East. It was originally estimated that the borough’s part of the bill would be $179,000. The bill was ultimately nearly triple the original estimate.

Abelovsky questioned whether PennDOT could just come and bill for whatever they wanted. Borough Solicitor James Nanovic said, basically, yes.

“When it (the project) was estimated, it was done prior to COVID, and it was estimated that the borough’s portion of the bill would be $179,000,” DeWire said. “Then we had that little thing called COVID, and then our portion tripled. What it comes down to is that we were not fully involved in PennDOT’s bid process at that time, and we have no choice but to pay this.”

Nanovic explained that the Borough of Lehighton at the time of the bidding process, gave PennDOT the authority to bill like that.

“When the bids came in, we (the borough) were aware of it, and we should have objected back then,” Nanovic stated. “Whoever was aware of it should have brought it to our (Council’s) attention. There was the potential that it could come in much higher.”

Nanovic also pointed out that the borough’s portion of the bill was just 25% of the cost of the whole project.

According to DeWire, the borough does have the money to pay the bill.

“That money is there in the Light & Power fund,” DeWire advised “We’ve been budgeting about $100,000 every year because we didn’t now how much it was going to come in at.”