Carbon County officially paid back a $6 million tax and revenue anticipation note it borrowed to help cover costs at the beginning of the year.

On Thursday, the county commissioners ratified the payment to Mauch Chunk Trust Company in the amount of $6,197,081.72.

Commissioner Wayne Nothstein said that while the county was able to pay the loan in full, it cost taxpayers $197,081.72 in interest because of two specific factors — the extremely late 2025 Pennsylvania state budget, which put a strain on all the counties that were forced to use fund balances and loans to keep offices open; as well as a smaller than should be fund balance.

Nothstein, during the previous administration, warned that draining the fund balance could hurt them down the road, but was outvoted with the decision to use it to offset tax increases.

“That’s $758.28 daily,” he said. “Plus, not only that, what about the interest we lost between the end of June (2025) and early in the year when we didn’t have those funds set aside for the expenses of this county? I really feel that this is an expense that could have been avoided by maintaining a proper fund balance to fund ourselves through this time period.”

Nothstein said that it will take several years before the county can catch up on the fund balance and will need to take the tax anticipation notes for a few more years before things balance out.

Because of the need to take these loans out, Nothstein pointed out, it has cost the county its higher credit rating for loans, lost interest on money in the bank and lost revenue.

Commissioners’ Chairman Mike Sofranko said that this administration is working to rebuild the fund balance to better serve the county in times like the state budget stalemate last year.

Since then, they have added a slight increase in taxes, voted to take $1.6 million from the parking fee fund to help balance the budget, cut back on spending and worked with department heads to determine how offices could be streamlined to cut down on spending and utilize the employees they have, rather than continuing to hire for new positions.

“We’ve made the money for filling the lot, so what this board of commissioners has done is we take roughly 1 mill in taxes, or $1.6 million for the last three years, and we’ve used that to put it right back into the general fund to try and keep your taxes down by 1 mill,” Sofranko said, noting that while the commissioners have raised taxes in the last three years, this move helped offset going to the taxpayers with bigger tax increases.

Overall, these changes have helped Carbon on the road to financial recovery, Sofranko said.

“The county is getting back where we need to be,” he said. “We’re doing our best to keep taxes down ... Yes we did raise some taxes. Yes, parking rates went up and yes, we did downsize some staff. We’ve done all that and we’ll continue to try.

“It just that it takes time.”