Property owners in Carbon County will see their real estate tax stay the same under a balanced $45.6 million 2015 budget adopted Thursday by commissioners.

The property tax rate will stay at 10.25 mills for the second year. That means the owner of a property assessed for taxes at $50,000 will pay $512.50 again next year.The total budget breaks down to $43.3 million for operating expenses, $177,324 for capital projects, and $2.36 million for special funds budgets.Of the tax rate, 10 mills go toward the general fund and 0.25 mills toward paying off debt.Each mill generates about $1.5 million, with a 92 percent collection rate, so the 10 mills for the general fund will generate $15,447,884.The county also anticipates receiving about $295,000 next year in late 2014 tax payments.The amount of tax revenue anticipated next year is only a shade over $10,453 more than the county received this year.The assessed value of property countywide increased by less than 0.10 percent, said Commissioner William O'Gurek.Given the dips in revenue and the peaks in expenses, the road to a balanced budget without a tax increase was a rocky one."It was a tough budget. We had a lot of requests for different things, and we had to say no," he said. "We asked our department heads and elected officials to tighten their belts."We don't like saying no all the time, but we're living in a time of austerity. We could do one of two things: We could raise taxes, or we could cut spending. And we didn't want to raise taxes," O'Gurek said.Commissioners' Chairman Wayne Nothstein said the county saw a reduction in some government grants and subsidies, while costs increased."There will be only a slight increase in tax revenue from properties, our funding has been cut by some state and federal resources, revenues have been dropping from the Recorder of Deeds because people have not been building or putting additions on their houses, so the permit fees are down. We're taking a lot of hits. It wasn't easy keeping the tax rate where it is," he said.The county worked hard to pare its expenses where they could, including putting off replacing old computers. Officials tweaked the budget between its preliminary approval on Nov. 20 and its final adoption Thursday, he said.Among the changes was a doubling of the amount budgeted to pay the county's annual fee to belong to the North Eastern Pennsylvania Alliance.Nothstein explained that for the past two years, the county had been paying only $4,900, half the amount due.That was because some bigger counties weren't paying their fair share, so Carbon and other counties decided to pay only half their fees.Now, those other counties are paying up, so Carbon will pay the full amount of $9,800.It will cost the county $12.3 million to pay its employees next year, 2.4 percent more than this year.A $10,000 juvenile justice grant will drop by half in June, and supplies for the prothonotary's office increased by $600, Nothstein said.On the bright side, the amount the county pays in pension contributions dropped by about half, from $800,000 to $400,000. Of that, about $325,000 comes out of the general fund.Also, the 2015 cost for health, dental and life insurance dropped by 8.5 percent, to $4.7 million.Finally, the county debt service will be used to make a 2015 payment of $534,074 toward long-term debt, including a principal of $369,879 and interest of $164,195.