New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer’s final budget proposal as county executive has no proposed property tax or sewer fee increases.
County property taxes have not been raised in six years – decreasing last year – and Meyer says residents won’t see an increase this either either.
Meyer proposes a $342.5 million operating budgetfor FY2025, a three percent increase from this year, mostly due to personnel costs he says.
“It’s very challenging in inflationary times to increase salaries," Meyer says. "Our finance department does an amazing job, has done an incredible job managing the budget, building our reserves, so we’re able to offer some of the most competitive police salaries, paramedic salaries, 911 salaries in the state.”
Meyer proposes raising the starting salary for police officers to $72,000, up from $63,000, and raising department salaries across the board by 10 percent. He touts that crime is down since he took office – since 2017, total criminal events are down by 17 percent, gun violence by 16 percent, and burglaries by over half at 58 percent.
Meyer also includes a 3 percent increase in funding to the fire service and the addition of four new 911 telecommunicator positions and ten new paramedic positions.
He says he is also supporting a county ordinance to immediately increase funding by 5.7 percent for the current fiscal year, which Council introduced later Tuesday night.
The capital budgetproposal is just over $34.2 million, much of it for sewer improvements throughout the county.
$4.4 million will complete Southern Regional Park. Meyer says between last year and this year, over $30 million will be put toward parks.
That will cover upgrading Delcastle’s softball facilities and enhancing playgrounds at Rosegate, Surratte Park, and others while building a second turf field at Banning Park, and expanding on existing pickleball courts.
Meyer says the Hope Center has enough federal ARPA money to operate through 2026, but a major goal this year is to look at how to fold the center's operating costs into the county budget. He does believe it is sustainable long-term if they continue to engage partners.
“If we can use the Hope Center to eliminate childhood poverty in New Castle County, that will save tens of millions, potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in resources, so why don’t we invest early on to eliminate or reduce childhood poverty?”
Council is expected to begin budget hearings early next month.
