Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong announced this week that the county will be able to hold the line on real estate taxes for 2021.

The tax rate will remain at 3.78 mills, which means that the owner of property assessed at $200,000 would pay $760.

The county raised taxes for 2020 by 3.8% for the first time in nearly 10 years. Armstrong said the increase helped lay the foundation for a no-increase budget for the coming year.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Armstrong said that staffing numbers are frozen for the coming year. Department heads were asked to economize in other areas, too, to come up with an austere budget in these challenging times, Armstrong said.

The proposed $456.7 million budget is $57.7 million less than the current year’s. It will be formally introduced in September with adoption expected in October.