Dover’s proposed budget for next fiscal year gets its first public reading at Monday's City Council’s meeting and property tax increases are likely to come up again.
Two attempts to raise the capital’s property taxes by two-and-a-half and three cents failed at a budget hearing last Wednesday.
The council has drafted a balanced budget for next fiscal year - hovering around $134 million - with no new taxes or rate hikes. The proposal closes a nearly $750 thousand budget gap by redeploying staff and not filling vacant positions.
But City Council President David Bonar says that’s only a short-term fix, which fails to address projected revenue declines in the coming years.
“The current budget that is going to have its first reading Monday night is a balanced budget, but the challenge that we have is going to be how to raise additional revenues in the out years to ensure we don’t have a multi-million dollar budget shortfall facing us in the long term,” said Bonar. “We have a serious structural problem in our budget that needs to be address now or we’re not going to be able maintain the infrastructure that needs to be replaced within the city and people will go back to brown water and failing sewer lines and things of that nature and we simply can’t afford to do that.”
Dover’s current property tax rate -- 33 cents per 100 dollars of assessed property value -- is one of the lowest in Delaware.
The city is required by law to pass a budget by July 1st.
