Carbon County has received the over $4 million that it was owed from the state for the Children and Youth Services program.

On Thursday, Commissioners’ Chairman Mike Sofranko provided the update regarding the millions that had been owed to the county for the program. Pennsylvania covers 80% of the $10 million annual budget for Children and Youth, while Carbon pays the remaining 20 percent; however, reimbursements for previous quarters were not being received in a timely manner.

The county had voiced their feelings on the delays in reimbursements late last year and eventually met with state Rep. Doyle Heffley and the state agency to discuss the matter.

“A lot of hard work, but that has been paid back,” Sofranko said.

However, while the reimbursements are good news for the county, Sofranko pointed out that the state still owes over $2 million to Carbon from the building project at 525 Iron St., Lehighton for Children and Youth.

“We still, it should be noted, don’t agree with the way the state kind of handles how they get our bills but we are working to rectify that,” he said.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner said that this is one of the reasons why Carbon had to take an $8 million tax anticipation note because this money isn’t in the county coffers to help cover costs until taxes come in.

“With our building project, we’re owed $2.1 million and nobody knows where it is,” he said. “They’re checking into it ... but this is something that we should have had that can cover some of our bills that are coming in.

He questioned why there was always a lag in reimbursement from the state.

“I don’t know why,” Ahner said. “I mean, we’re going back, probably to 2022 where this money is still owed.”

“I think that one thing we all learned from all of this is the billing has to be done properly and we’ve rectified that and our billing has to be on time and we’ve taken care of that,” Sofranko said. “But I’m going to ask you a question. If I agreed to get $3 million over the last three years and you sent me a payment $1 million three years ago, ... Do I have to send you another bill to remind you of the ($2 million still owed)? Welcome to the state of Pennsylvania.

“If we agree to the terms, we pay,” he added. “I can’t say, ‘well, you never invoiced me.’ ... So you can say why wasn’t this caught? Well, why weren’t we told ‘where’s the invoice?’ I’m not trying to point fingers, but I’ll accept responsibility and so will the commissioners, but there’s got to be some responsibility on the other side of the table.”

“If they did a spreadsheet, they should have came up with more money than they were putting out,” Ahner added. “So nobody questioned that at the state? ‘Oh, we got $2 million here, where does it go?’ Nobody knows that?”

“We fixed our issues, trust me,” Sofranko said. “Now we will watch.”

Carbon County purchased the Iron Street building from St. Luke’s in February 2022 for $500,000.

In September 2022, Carbon County earmarked $3 million of its $12.46 million allocation from the American Rescue Plan for renovations of the building with the stipulation that it will be reimbursed by the department through the state.

The department then moved into its current location in June 2023.