Carbon County is looking to hold the line on real estate taxes for 2023.

During the county commissioners’ meeting on Thursday, the board approved the proposed operating, capital projects and special funds budgets for next year, keeping the millage rate at 12.25.

That means a homeowner who has a home assessed at $50,000 will pay the same as last year.

The $76,581,177 budget “keeps the needs” and eliminates the wants, Commissioner Rocky Ahner said.

“The answer is not to automatically go to the taxpayer’s bank account,” he said, noting that the budget tightens up on spending.

He highlighted a few bigger ticket items in the budget that were scaled down, including the courthouse renovation project, which was reduced from $6.9 million in cost to $5 million. Other items in the budget for capital projects include $2.5 million for renovations for the Children and Youth building in Lehighton; and $1.2 million for the administration building roof and HVAC project.

Ahner said that also included is the proposed new wage scale for county employees, which the board plans to act on next week.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said he was happy to hold the line, but warned that using the fund balance to close the gaps will eventually come back to bite the county.

He cited rising health care costs at the prison, as well as a $3.8 million deficit.

“We’ll be OK this year, but next year will be a serious issue with the wages going up, contracts that have been approved already,” Nothstein said. “...We cannot continue to spend down this fund balance like this. I don’t want to get back to the years when I first started. Come January, we had to take out a tax anticipation note to get us to April. We built the fund up for many reasons. ... If we have to go back to that next year, I think we’re just no longer kicking a can down the road. We’re kicking a barrel and pretty soon it’s going to be a tank truck.”

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich provided a different take on the budget, noting that he felt the county’s fund balance carry-over was “excessive” and this is trimming it down to a more reasonable amount.

He also pointed out that the $2.5 million for the Children and Youth building is reimbursable and the county is using American Rescue Plan funds.

“We’re actually in pretty darn good shape,” Lukasevich said.

Lukasevich also suggested the board approve a 2024 proposed budget as early as possible next year due to 2023 being an election year.

The board commended the individual departments and row offices for focusing on the main operations and not putting in requests for wants for their offices.

“They did pretty darn good,” Lukasevich said. “There were no really excessive requests.”

The proposed budget is now available for public inspection in the commissioners’ office in Jim Thorpe until Dec. 21.

The final budget is expected to be adopted during the commissioners’ weekly meeting on Dec. 22.