Council eyes 5% real estate tax increase
Members cite spiraling expenses; final vote next week
It has to be done, Delaware County officials said of a 5% tax increase in the proposed 2024 budget.
“Look, nine straight years without increasing revenue is a heck of a run,” County Councilman Kevin Madden said. “No organization — public or private — I don’t care who, you can’t see all of your costs go up significantly and see revenues stay flat and make that math work … At the end of the day, this is something that has to occur. We need to be responsible stewards of the county and how it’s run.”
For nine consecutive years, both Democratic-led and Republican-led councils have maintained the line and passed no-tax-increase budgets even as inflation has continued to spike.
Should the tax increase remain in the budget, it would equate to a $38.19 increase on a property at the average county assessment of $254,683 for a total county real estate tax bill of $801.98.
On Tuesday, Delaware County officials looked at a proposed budget for 2024. It will be discussed at the Wednesday evening council meeting at 6. A final budget is anticipated to
come up for a council vote at the Dec. 13 meeting.
“We are challenged by a competitive job market, the deprivatization of the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, the need to renovate current real estate assets and to acquire properties to house our departments that are in rental properties and/ or substandard conditions and the need to save open spaces when and where appropriate,” Delaware County Chief Administrative Officer Marc Wooley said.
Plus, county officials noted the pressure experienced everywhere by high inflation.
County Councilwoman Christine Reuther said the U.S. Department of Labor
said the Consumer Price Index, which measures the cost of basic items, saw an increase of 22% from June 2014 to October 2023.
The $428 million financial package revealed Tuesday night includes $285.5 million for operating expenses, down 2.3% from this year’s $292 million. Fair Acres is allotted nearly $68 million next year, compared to $69 million being spent at the facility this year. And, the capital budget increases 4.7% next year from almost $408 million to $454 million.
This does not include the $454 million earmarked for Human Services since that budget is fully funded by federal and state funding as well as grants.
The 2024 budget is a realization that the county must reduce its reliance on federal COVID relief funds, Wooley said.
In addition, Reuther said deferred maintenance amounted to $350 million as determined by the first countywide assessment of the status of county buildings and infrastructure.
County Councilwoman Elaine Paul Schaefer said when the Democratic majority was elected in November 2019, a Republican-controlled county council decreased taxes leaving the incoming council with less revenue.
“This increase of 5% is bringing us back to where we would have been had that not happened,” she said.
Reuther also noted that Montgomery, Bucks and Chester counties are more affluent and experience more growth than Delaware County, which also requires more services for residents than the other three.
She added that county residents have not yet had to pay for the Delaware County Health Department, which opened in April 2022, because of the use of federal COVID relief funds, Reuther said. County officials said within two years, the health department will be funded
75% by state and federal funds and grants.
In that same month, April 2022, the county retook control of the operations of the George W. Hill Correctional Facility and with it, the costs of personnel. With some of the lowest county correctional officer salaries in Pennsylvania, county council raised the wages to be able to attract and retain those positions at the prison.
“I’m sitting here looking at this and I don’t feel bad about staffing the county so we can provide the services in the government that everybody else in every other county has been getting for the last 20 years and we haven’t been,” Reuther said. “I don’t feel bad investing in buildings
so that they don’t fall down … I feel bad for people on fixed incomes who are going to see a tax increase here … That I feel bad about … but my job as an elected official in this county is to make sure that we provide the services we’re supposed to provide and to do it, we need a tax increase.”
On July 27, 2018, a 48foot long concrete panel separated from its welds on the four-story parking garage ramp on Orange and Front streets adjacent to the courthouse/government center complex. As a result the adjoining Toal and Sweeney buildings, as well as the garage, needed to be demolished. A parking lot is now being built on the site.