FORKS TWP., Pa. — All across the Lehigh Valley, taxes could be about to go up.

Both Lehigh and Northampton County executives have proposed significant tax increases in their 2027 budgets.

Last Friday, Northampton County Executive Tara Zrinski broke the news about her 2027 property tax proposal.

“This is a 4.7 mil increase. Yeah, that’s 43.5%,” said Zrinski.

Zrinski said the demand for thousands more from homeowners across the county was partially based on decisions before she got into office.

“This does not represent a typical, annual adjustment. It’s the first property tax increase in more than a decade and the most significant rate change in recent memory, because it follows all of these consecutive budget cuts,” said Zrinski.

But for Helen Shore, who lives in a Forks Township neighborhood, it’s not what she wants to hear.

“I just think it is too much, and that they need to rethink it,” said Shore. “People might want to just move over one county.”

But one county over, they’re also raising taxes. In Lehigh County, the proposal is to go up 18%, and Executive Josh Siegel said it’s for a lot of the same reasons.

“2013 was the last time Lehigh County had a significant tax increase. So imagine, 15 years we essentially flat-funded Lehigh County, and in that time we had a once-in-a-century pandemic, massive increases in inflation, and also a growing county, where there’s more demand on our services,” said Siegel.

But Siegel said there’s also a source of funding running out: Federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan passed in 2021. In Lehigh County, that was about $73 million.

“This is the last year we can use American Rescue Plan funding, and most of that money has already been spent, and so now again, as I said, there are decisions that are often made for us as governors or as leaders, and this is an example of that. There’s no money left and the bill has come due,” said Siegel.

Shore just hopes they try to find a way to keep some of that bill from hitting her.

“There just needs to be a moderating of how much extra they really, legitimately need to add to our tax burden,” said Shore. “I hope there will be some good conversation in Northampton County headquarters.”

Siegel said he also wants to start a discussion in Harrisburg about possibly allowing counties to use other forms of taxation, like sales taxes, instead of just having to rely on property tax revenue. He said that could prevent hikes like these in the future, but that’s a law legislators would have to pass in Harrisburg.