Carbon County taxpayers will see an increase in their 2025 real estate taxes, however the decision to approve the budget came with some disagreements.

On Thursday, in a 2-1 vote, the board of commissioners approved the $83.7 million budget, which calls for a 3-mill increase. That means that a homeowner with a home that has an assessed value of $46,000 should expect to pay approximately $140 more in taxes next year.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner cast the sole no vote, then was called out by Commissioner Wayne Nothstein for not providing solutions to the problem and instead just voting against fixing some of the deficit.

“You have said many times that there’s areas where we can cut funding, but you have yet to come up with any recommendations,” Nothstein said to Ahner, pointing out that Ahner voted yes last week to proceed with the $8 million tax anticipation note without taking actions to raise funds to pay those bills.

He also questioned where the additional funds would have came from regarding the motions Ahner had made this past January asking for 5% raises for the employees.

Ahner responded that this falls back on the $6.2 million that the state owes the county, meaning the money isn’t in the county’s coffers to be able to keep it afloat in the beginning of the year until taxes start to come in.

“Last year, we were owed $4 million. This year, $6 million. Is next year going to be $8 million,” Ahner said. “We got to put a stop to this, that we start getting money from the state. That’s $6 million that’s in and we’re building the fund balance up to cover for the state. That’s my point. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t raise taxes because of giving people a wage, but we’re just passing a budget to build our fund balance up to cover for the bills that the money that the state does not give us.

“I’m tired of covering for the state,” he added, noting that there is a meeting scheduled with the state about this issue next week. “I don’t need a meeting to tell them we need our $6 million. ... I think it’s time the state mans up.”

Nothstein responded that he agreed with Ahner’s thoughts on the state reimbursement delays, however the county has been operating at a deficit for the last four years. Over those four years, Nothstein had argued about using the fund balance to offset tax increases.

“You have not been making any moves whatsoever to make up the cost of increased cost of operating county government,” Nothstein said. “That’s the problem. I understand what you say, but without the increases, we will not make it. We can’t pay our employees regardless of that $6.2 million, but without a fund balance, we have nothing to pay the bills between now and April.”

He pointed out that it costs approximately $683,000 every pay period to pay all the county employees, meaning in 2025, the county would spend approximately $5 million on seven payrolls before taxes begin to come in to help cover operations.

Nothstein voted yes for the budget only because he said “somebody has to start taking responsibility for voting for these things.”

Commissioners’ Chairman Mike Sofranko, who is completing his first year as commissioner, said he saw both sides of the argument, however, building the fund balance again would help move the county in a better direction.

“Nobody here wants to raise taxes,” he said, adding that the county is financially cash strapped, meaning that something has to be done and that something is a tax increase, as well as the tax anticipation note.

Sofranko pointed out that because of the fund balance being drained over the last few years, it has caused the county’s credit rating to drop from AA to AA-minus, meaning interest rates will be higher for the tax anticipation note.

S&P Global maintains the credit rating, looking to make sure a county has between 10% and 15% of the funds it needs in its coffers as a fund balance when giving a credit rating. Because Carbon does not have that anymore, S&P dropped the credit rating a grade, as well as changed the county’s outlook from stable to negative.

Sofranko concluded the discussion with saying that while the problem is compounded because of the money the state owes the county, something has to be done to move the county back in the right direction.

Following the vote, Nothstein said that department heads need to tighten their belts.

“Just because money is in your budget, it doesn’t mean you have to spend it,” he said. “If you don’t need it, don’t spend it.”