Sussex County has adopted a $128.6 million dollar budget for the upcoming fiscal year -- its first expanded budget in several years.
Finance director Gina Jennings says county revenues have stabilized after a period of cutbacks. That’s allowed Sussex to increase its 2016 budget by almost 10 percent, including a 2.9 percent hike in operational spending.
That's paid for with additional property tax revenue, which is set to rise without a rate increase thanks to new construction and land improvements.
It's not quite as high as they could have gone, but Jennings says the county needs to be cautious with changeable sources of income.
"The problem with our revenue being based off of a lot of real estate is that it's volatile. So we don't want to budget 100% of what we're expecting, so we always budget slightly below that."
Still, she says the expanded budget will let them move forward on some long-awaited projects.
"[In the] last few years we have seen a decrease, but now that we see our revenues are stabilizing, we're able to spend some of our savings for some capital purchases and things like that, and prepare for the future in our infrastructure," Jennings says.
She says that'll mean upgrading the industrial park, newly rebranded airport and sewer system. Sewer fees have increased $8 in each of the past 6 years to pay for improvements, and will see the same increase again in the upcoming fiscal year. No other major fees are set to increase.
