Dauphin County Raises Property Taxes 22% for Health Care
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- Dauphin County, Pennsylvania voted in December 2024 to raise property taxes by 22% — the county's first property tax increase in two decades — to help offset soaring employee health care costs.
- Dauphin County cut its workforce by 19% over the past 20 years, yet health care spending more than doubled during that same period.
- Per-employee health care costs for the county tripled over the past 20 years.
- County officials warned that without the tax hike, they would have had to consider slashing health benefits for a dwindling staff that depends on them.
Why it matters: Dauphin County shows how public employers face a binary: raise taxes or cut benefits, because trimming staff doesn't fix the math — per-employee costs tripled even as headcount fell 19%. Property taxpayers are now absorbing the bill for two decades of health care inflation that workforce reductions failed to offset.
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