Carbon County will hold the line on taxes in 2023 even after one official warned that if a small hike isn’t done now, a larger tax increase will be needed in the very near future.

On Thursday, the board of commissioners voted 2-1 to adopt the 2023 spending plan.

The budget includes $59,029,827 for operating funds; $9,598,825 for capital projects and $7,721,898 for special funds.

Before the vote, Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein, who cast the sole no vote, warned his colleagues that taking millions out of the fund balance to cover the $3 million deficit is not the best thing to do.

“Taking the fund balance down even further from a beginning balance of just over $8 million to less than $5 million ... I am really concerned with not approving at least a half mill increase. My concern is what are you going to do next year when you are down to $4 plus million (in fund balance) and you continue to spend down $3 plus more million? You can only do it for so long.”

Nothstein projected that if this continues to happen it will be like it was when he first started as a commissioner, with the board needing to take out tax anticipation notes to get the county through the first few months of the new year until taxes begin to come in.

“If we do not do an increase, we will be facing a larger increase in millage or you could spend down the fund balance and then have to take out a tax anticipation note the following January if we do not do something to control this,” he said. “I’m really disappointed in my fellow commissioners for not having the foresight to see what we’re approving here.”

He pointed out the anticipated required contribution for the retirement system is $400,000, while an additional $800,000 is set aside for salary increases.

“You cannot keep going without doing something,” Nothstein said. “You’re just going to kill the taxpayers in the long run or put the shaft to future boards of commissioners.”

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich shot back that previous boards of commissioners in 2012 and 2019, which Nothstein was a member, had no problem increasing taxes by 48.7 percent and 19.5 percent respectively.

“Seems like there is a precedences for those types of increases,” he told Nothstein.

Lukasevich said that he would assume responsibility if a future tax increase was “absolutely necessary,” but “it isn’t absolutely necessary now. I agree with Commissioner Ahner that we are in a good situation ... sufficient financial situation that we can forgo any notable increase in taxes this year.”

He said that next year may be a different story, but he felt the fund balance the county has was excessive and should be drawn down.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner echoed his thoughts from the preliminary budget, noting that unnecessary items have been cut out to get to no tax increases.

“I always said, ‘You don’t raise taxes because you can, you raise taxes if it is needed.’ I think we’re all right this year,” Ahner said. “Taxing people every year doesn’t work.”

Nothstein defended the previous decisions for tax increases because it was setting the county up better for future years with a healthy fund balance.

Lukasevich called it an excessive carry-over.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen in 2023, like we had in 2022 with the inflation that occurred,” Nothstein said. “We didn’t expect to spend over a million for a roof and air conditioning for this building.”