FRANKLIN, Pa. (EYT) — Venango County property taxes will not be raised in 2020 after all.

A month after approving a tentative budget that would have increased property taxes one mill, the Venango County Commissioners formally approved a 2020 budget that holds taxes at six mills, the same as last year.

The vote was 2-1 in favor of the six-mill tax budget with Democrat Albert “Chip” Abramovic joining Republican Vince Witherhup in holding the line on taxes. Republican Tim Brooks voted against the six-mill budget.

Abramovic was the swing vote on the budget. A month ago, the newly re-elected commissioner had voted in favor of a budget that would have raised the millage rate.

But, Abramovic said after careful consideration, he realized raising taxes was not the right thing to do at this time.

“After going through the budget and seeing some things, I think we can go forward without a tax increase,” Abramovic told exploreVenango.

“I don’t know if our resident can handle the tax increase at this time.”

In keeping with his no-tax-increase mindset, Abramovic was also the lone “no” vote in raising the Venango County Hotel Room Rental Tax from three percent to five percent.

“I’m not for raising taxes at this point,” Abramovic said. “On the hotel side, we are trying to drive tourism here, so raising taxes on those coming into the county (didn’t make sense).”

Brooks, the Republican who voted for the millage increase at the November meeting and the hotel tax increase said the reason he was in favor of raising the hotel tax was that surrounding counties all had their tax at the maximum five percent while Venango County was still at three percent.

“I think it was warranted to bring money into the county,” Brooks said. “I believe that money can help with tourism.”

Brooks, who was defeated in his bid for re-election in both the primary in May and in the general election in November when he ran as a write-in candidate, said it was his belief that the Oil Region Alliance was in favor of the County’s hotel tax being raised two percent.

Both of the Venango Commissioner-elects, Sam Breene and Mike Dulaney applauded the current commissioners for taking the tax millage increase out of the budget.

“I campaigned against the tax raise,” Dulaney said. “I’m pretty thrilled (with them not being raised). If I had been up there, I would have voted the same way.”

Breene said he thinks it is great that the current commissioners decided to hold the line on real estate taxes.

“I’m very glad they decided not to put that kind of a burden on the taxpayers of Venango County,” Breene said. “I’m very happy about it.”

Both commissioner-elects understand that while taxes have been held steady in the 2020 budget, there is a lot of work for them to do when they take office.

“There always are budget issues,” Breene said. “But, no matter what, your first option should never be to burden the taxpayers with an increase.”

Dulaney said his time spent on the Franklin City Council has taught him to always be aware of what the budget looks like.

“That’s always a concern,” Dulaney said. “From my time on City Council, we were constantly aware of that.”

The passed Venango County budget for 2020 includes $56,622,408.00 in revenue which is down from $57,071,337.00 in 2019, with expenses coming in at $59,894,816.00, also down from $60,432,946.00 in 2019.

During a presentation on the budget at Tuesday’s Commissioners meeting, Diona Brick, the Venango County Administrator of Finance and Management Services, said there were some significant changes from the budget presented in November to the final budget that was approved on Tuesday. Those changes represented a six percent change in the total budget which fell below the 10 percent that counties can change without having to readvertise the budget.

“There are two funds where revenues have changed specifically,” Brick said. “That would be the general fund and the special revenue fund.

“And again, your expenses, the same two funds (have changed).”

The difference in the November budget to the December budget is a decrease of about $1.2 million.

“The changes on the revenue side are two things,” Brick said. “One is the taxes. That number has decreased by 1.663. That takes out a tax increase. The millage rate will remain at six, unchanged in this budget.

“The second number that has changed would be your inter-fund transfer number. That projects a little bit larger of an operating reserve transfer in, money coming from the savings account to help fund the budget. This would be all the money that is projected to be in the savings account at $4.402. Million.”

In the expense category, one of the biggest changes is in the salary number, which has come down about $242,000.00 to $7,593,635.00.

“We removed some things from the salaries,” Brick said. “People asking for some positions and so on.”

Also, the benefit number has also be decreased to $2,928,929.00.

“We have removed the pension contribution,” Brick said. “That is the largest of the decrease there.”

The professional fee budget also came in at $2,854.721.00.

“It came down about $170,000.00,” Brick said.

One of the biggest changes in the professional fee budget was the removal of outside housing for prisoners, Brick said.

The county contingency budget of $150,000.00 was also removed.

“We’re hoping that we don’t need contingency next year,” Brick said. “Or, we can possibly take it from a different line if unused.”

The 2020 budget also removed some renovations to the Venango County Prison, as well.