CLEARFIELD – The Clearfield County Commissioners on Tuesday voted to adopt the county’s 2025 final budget with a one-mill tax increase.
The budget plan has overall revenues and expenditures both totaling $43,895,785.50. The general fund totals $26,575,812.
“It’s a worst-case scenario,” Commissioner Chairman Dave Glass commented last month, noting that it’s the best way to prepare a budget plan.
“You plan for the worst, then hope for better.”
And, while he doesn’t believe the upcoming budget year will turn out as badly as initial figures show, Glass said the county must still prepare and that’s what made the tax increase necessary.
“We are not in the black on paper for sure,” Glass indicated last month when he projected that the county could possibly end with a $1.9 million shortfall.
But, because the tax increase should generate roughly $1.1 million in revenue, the county figures it—at most—might have to draw a few hundred thousand from its operating reserves to plug the remaining funding gap.
It could be an even more nominal amount between contingency planning and the possibility of some things turning out for the better, said Glass, noting that the county would have been drawing over a million dollars from its reserves without the tax increase, which is just too much.
With the adoption of the county’s final budget Tuesday, the commissioners also certified the millage rate at 13.5 mills for 2025.
The budget passed by a 2-1 vote, with opposition from Commissioner John Sobel. His reasoning remained unchanged from last month.
Sobel believes the county needs to find a way to significantly lower the jail’s medical expenses, which he finds outrageous as one of the main contributors to the county’s grim budget outlook.
As it currently stands, he said county taxpayers are paying for inmate medical coverage that is better than what they receive from their employers.
Sobel also believes that some employee salary increases were too high this past year, namely those in the realm of 12 to 14 percent.
He doubts that many other employers give out those kinds of raises and certainly not in Clearfield County.
“County government has to be reflective of the society it serves.”
