County property owners were officially spared an increase in their real estate taxes when the county commissioners unanimously adopted a $456. million budget for next year that calls for no tax increase.

Despite county spending budgeted to increase next year by $17.9 million, county property taxes are being held is 3.804 mills. The difference is being made up mainly through savings in debt service payments resulting from the county obtaining a Triple A bond rating.

The 2008 budget is the first budget in eight years that does not call for a tax increase, albeit increases during the past three years were held below the cost of living and combined did not exceed $100 for the average homeowner with a home appraised at $193,359.

Commissioner Pat O'Donnell, the lone Democrat on the three-member board, voted for the budget. However, he criticized his Republican counterparts for over taxing county homeowners in the 2007 budget so as to build up a $45 million surplus and avoid a tax increase in an election year.

"We have a four percent increase in the cost of county government, but a a zero tax increase," said O'Donnell.

"We will live within our budget," said commissioners' Chairwoman Carol Aichele. "We will not exceed the cost of living."

According to Aichele the surplus is needed to keep the county running the first 90 days of the new year when there are no tax revenues coming in. She said $15 million of the $45 million surplus is set aside as an emergency fund, a requirement of a past Blue Ribbon commission. The remaining $30 million will be used to run the county until tax revenues start coming in. "We don't even send out tax bills until February," she said. "If we started the year with a zero balance, we wouldn't have any money to run county government." The alternative would be the take out a tax anticipation note, she said.

O'Donnell said last year the excuse for a tax hike was that Moody's Investors Service, a nation investment rating firm, liked to see modest tax increases and was one the reasons the national credit rating firm upgraded the county's bond rating to Triple A. O'Donnell apposed last year's tax increase.

Commissioner Donald Mancini said he wasn't proud that each of the previous three years' budgets called for tax hikes; however, he pointed out that none was higher than 4.2 percent. "It went down every year," he said.

Aichele said in Delaware County taxes were increased by 8.47 percent and 7.34 percent in Lancaster County. In Montgomery County, the commissioners there lowered taxes by 5.1 percent. Aichele said this was done by reducing the reserve from $90 million to $60 million.

Commissioner-elect Terence Farrell said the county might be facing a more difficult time next year because of the number of foreclosures resulting from sub-prime mortgages. Foreclosures, he said, are up 95 percent.

The $17.9 increase in county spending for 2008 resulted in part from staffing and operating the new Justice Center, and for staffing and funding for a new judge; the combined cost is $1.6 million. Also, the county plans all spending $20 million on preserving open space and revitalization of its urban centers.

Real estate taxes account for 30 percent, $138 million, of the $456 million projected for revenues. State and federal grants make up the largest source of revenues, $198.8 million, 44 percent of the total revenue budget.

The 2008 budget approved yesterday had not changed from the preliminary budget the Republican-controlled board of commissioners presented just prior to the general election which saw Aichle and Farrell elected by large numbers over their closest Democrat rival.