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County Executive Tara Zrinski gives the 2027 Northampton County budget address. (Full video)<\/p>\n
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BETHLEHEM TWP., Pa. — Northampton County Executive Tara Zrinski has proposed a 43.5% property tax increase in the new year.<\/p>\n
Zrinski unveiled her 2027 budget plan Friday morning at the county’s Department of Human Services building.<\/p>\n
Zrinski had previously said a tax increase was likely but didn’t talk official numbers until now.<\/p>\n
She proposes increasing Northampton County’s millage rate from 10.8 mills to 15.5 mills.<\/p>\n
One mill equals $1 of tax per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value.<\/p>\n
The proposed increase means the owner of a home with a $100,000 assessed value would pay an extra $470 in taxes a year.<\/p>\n
Northampton County has not raised property taxes in more than a decade; now-former County Executive Lamont McClure cut taxes by a mill in 2022, a move that Zrinski said has cost the county $40 million.<\/p>\n
Zrinski said McClure’s last budget left important needs unfunded, including employee retirement contributions; the county’s contribution to its nursing home, Gracedale; and the Northampton County Jail.<\/p>\n
She has also said the county must pay its employees more.<\/p>\n
Zrinski conceded that the tax increase would not be viewed as a “welcome announcement,” but said it was necessary to responsibly meet the county’s commitments.<\/p>\n
The spending plan will need to be approved by Northampton County Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" County Executive Tara Zrinski gives the 2027 Northampton County budget address. (Full video) BETHLEHEM TWP.,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,4958,434],"class_list":["post-298508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-city_township_county_councils","tag-northampton-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}