Jim Thorpe Borough residents will see a property tax increase in 2021 to help cover two upcoming projects, a new borough garage and renovations to the Memorial Hall building on East Tenth Street.

The increase, included in the 2021 budget passed by borough council Thursday night, comes to 2.56 mills, which will add $178 to the tax bill of a homeowner with a median property assessment.

“We’ve been kicking these projects around for a while and at some point we have to start to tackle them,” Borough President Greg Strubinger said. “Our buildings are aging and we can’t keep deferring that maintenance.”

The borough plans to tear down its current public works building adjacent to Memorial Park and dedicate that space back to park use, and build a new garage on land it owns along West Broadway near its water plant.

It also plans to renovate Memorial Hall, moving borough offices to half of the top floor and converting the bottom floor, formerly a roller skating rink, to a police department. The remainder of the top floor, not dedicated to borough office space, would be used as a community center.

“We’ve been told our current borough building is not ideally suited for its current use,” Strubinger said. “We’re hoping we can move forward and come out of this with something the residents can be proud of in exchange for their money that is being spent.”

Memorial Hall has been doubling as a food pantry for the past several months and Strubinger used that as an example of how he would like to see the facility used in the future.

“We want this building to be community focused with things like veterans events, nonprofit use, bloodmobiles, etc.,” he said.

Bids are out for both projects.

Strubinger said there is a possibility the borough could award bids in January.

Council officially rejected a first round of bids in October for a 26,000-square-foot public works garage with nine service bays. The low bid came in just under $3 million, which is about $800,000 over preliminary estimates.

“Unfortunately COVID-19 hit right when we were bidding the garage out,” Strubinger said at the time.

The upcoming tax increase likely won’t be the last when it comes to helping fund the project. Strubinger said the borough forecast a 2-mill increase in 2022, and a 0.4-mill increase in 2023.

“We may break that 2-mill increase out over two years,” he said. “Everything is really contingent upon the bids and what our budget looks like in relation to those bids.”

The 2021 budget approved Thursday also includes a 5% increase to the borough’s water rate.

“The good news is we don’t foresee any additional utility increases, whether it be water, sewer or sanitation between 2021-25,” Strubinger said. “We have a $270,000 debt service that will be retired in our sewer fund and a $200,000 debt service coming off the books in our water fund. They will both allow council to forgo any other increases.”