Property owners in Lehighton Area School District can breathe a sigh of relief as the school board adopted its final 2015-16 spending plan Monday night while holding the line on taxes.

The district is estimating to spend $38,658,582, while bringing in only $37,609,406.According to resolution adopted Monday, the projected $1,049,176 shortfall would come of Lehighton's fund balance, which is essentially an accumulation of unspent money from prior years.While the motion passed 6-0, with three board members absent, Rocky Ahner expressed concern over what else will cut into the $12.7 million fund balance, namely a $6.3 million artificial turf athletic stadium, field house and other improvements approved in late May."I don't think we ever had a final determination of where the money is coming from for that stadium, and I don't want to head in a direction where we're raising taxes in two years," said Ahner, a member of the board and Lehighton's finance committee.Board President Gloria Bowman said there is almost $2 million between a PLGIT account and a capital reserve fund that will keep the district from paying the entire stadium bill out of the fund balance.In previous meetings, business manager Brian Feick said if the district played its cards right, it could hold the line on taxes until 2020."Right now, I've estimated our contribution from the state to be less than 2 percent, as it was last year," Feick said. "If Gov. Wolf's budget passes, we would have to use $380,000 less from the fund balance for the 2015-16 budget. We won't know that until probably late July. I didn't want to account for that in the budget and then see us not get that amount."The district's deadline to pass a budget is June 30, and while it still had a June 22 meeting before that date, Feick said he scheduled it for a vote Monday night to help the tax collectors."They had asked us to do this to help give them time to get the bills ready and out in the mail," he said.