Real estate tax bills are expected to be in the hands of property owners in Lehighton Area School District by early August.

“Since we passed the budget at the very end of June, we went to the back of the line at the printers,” Patricia Denicola, Lehighton business administrator said during Monday night’s school board meeting.

Bills are expected to be delivered to the district with postage on them by the end of the month and will then be mailed to property owners.

Lehighton voted on June 27 to use a 1-mill property tax increase to help slice what was once a $4.5 million shortfall down to $2.5 million. The increase will add $59.41 to the average taxpayer’s bill.

Qualifying homestead/farmstead owners will see a $266 reduction on their tax bill.

“The timeline to get the 2 percent discount by paying early will be extended due to the delay in getting the bills printed,” Denicola said.

Taxing the annex building

In other Lehighton school district tax news, school board Director David Bradley on Monday requested the solicitor to look into whether or not the district should be sending a tax bill to Lehighton Borough for the annex building on North Third Street because “the borough rents space within it as a commercial opportunity.”

“By law, it’s taxable,” Bradley said. “They are using it in a non-tax exempt way. We have an unsustainable budget, yet we are not collecting a tax for a building we sold them to for I believe $1.”

District solicitor Eric Filer said the matter would take some research, but warned that generally, “public entities do not start fights with one another.”

Lehighton Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver also urged caution, noting the positive working relationship the two entities have had over the years.

“The borough does a lot for us and we have worked together on many different things,” Cleaver said. “We also have our differences, but in the scope of everything, we’ve had a positive working relationship and they have been very cooperative for years and years.”

Bradley called not taxing the building a 20-year mistake that cost the district around $800,000.

“I think we should have Eric get back to us on what the law says and next month we could decide how we want to proceed,” director Joy Beers said. “We have the choice to forgive it even if it is taxable, but let’s first find out the information.”

Officials in Carbon County’s tax assessment office said their office doesn’t have the right to change a property from exempt to taxable. Instead, the district, if so inclined, would need to take the matter before the county’s board of assessment appeals.

Carbon County itself does not currently tax the borough for the annex property.