It's anybody's guess just how much money the Coplay library tax will actually generate.

At the library board's June 13 meeting, library bookkeeper Teri Holderman presented a financial forecast. As part of this report, she said, a percentage of the tax levy will be uncollectible.

Instead of raising $72,000 as intended, the dedicated library tax is likely to bring in only about $65,000, she said.

However, former board President Natalie Reichl said the referendum will raise $72,000, enough to replace the $72,000 in annual funding withdrawn by the Whitehall-Coplay School District at the end of the last school year.

"The library board did not make a mistake in calculating the millage," said Reichl at the July 11 library board meeting, reading from a prepared statement.

She said she obtained the rate of recovery – or the percentage the borough can actually expect to collect of its tax levy – from Francis Unger of the Lehigh County Tax Assessment Office in January 2013.

"Our rate of recovery is 98 percent. Mr. Unger gave the information to our borough secretary, who immediately forwarded me the appropriate information," Reichl said. "Therefore, the millage we used for the referendum (0.38) represents the amount of tax the referendum will generate based on the recovery rate of 98 percent. If 99 percent of Coplay taxpayers would pay this dedicated tax, the library will receive a bit more."

Contacted by phone Monday, Unger said he did not provide a rate of recovery.

"That's not my function," he said. "The only thing I provided to them was the taxable valuation."

Coplay's real estate assessment for 2013 is $195,361,700, according to borough Secretary-Treasurer Sandra Gyecsek. If 98 percent of the library tax is collected, it will amount to $72,752.70, she said.

"The bottom line is what they're going to get next year is whatever comes in," Coplay tax collector Jeffrey Deutsch told The Press Monday. "Right now everybody's guessing."

The tax levy is likely to bring in $72,000 after several years, but initially it will not, Deutsch said.

"Sometimes you don't collect the taxes for three to four years," he said. That means in 2014, when the tax is first levied, only the current year's taxes will be collected, with no additional revenue generated by the payment of delinquent taxes from previous years.

"That's going to hurt them the first year," Deutsch said.

Typically, 96 to 98 percent of the tax levy is collected in a single year, said Deutsch, adding Holderman's figure of $65,000 is conservative but realistic for 2014. In future years, the current year's levy plus revenue from delinquent taxes should amount to about $72,000.

Library board President Janet Eisenhauer said it really doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong. The board needs to find out what the correct figure is and budget accordingly.