Thursday, May 1, marks Gov. Matt Meyer’s 100th day in office as Delaware’s chief executive. The former New Castle County executive campaigned on fixing public education, expanding affordable healthcare and housing and increasing government transparency.
Meyer upset Democratic Party-backed candidate and former Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long in the Democratic Primary and ultimately prevailed against Republican challenger and former State House Minority Leader Mike Ramone.
The former public school teacher, small business owner and diplomat entered office with hopes of disrupting the so-called “Delaware Way,” which Meyer has referred to as the First State’s broken political tradition of relying on insider decision-making and personal relationships.
Meyer has made action and accelerated timelines the hallmark of his first few months in office but says there’s no question the federal funding cuts and layoffs under the Trump administration have not made his plans any easier.
“I am in office to make sure our public schools improve. Having public schools that are having the struggles that Delaware public schools are having today is not acceptable for Delawareans. I think it's one of the big reasons why people elected me governor. Second, our healthcare system across our country, but especially here in Delaware, needs to be a 21st century healthcare system — affordable, accessible healthcare for everyone. No excuses. Housing — Delaware is a place where my family came here when I was a child in part because housing was so affordable. So we are laser focused in my administration on those three things," Meyer said. "At the same time, I got to look you in the eye and tell you there have been distractors during the first 100 days – distractors largely coming from Washington. And so we've developed some basic principles around dealing with the Trump administration. As I said in my inaugural address and have repeated numerous times since then, I'm eager to work with the Trump administration or any president or anyone on the national level who serves Delaware and serves Delawareans interests from any corner of this state.”
Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings has either been leading or joining virtually every nationwide lawsuit against the Trump administration’s policies and funding cuts that Democratic states argue are unconstitutional.
While some rulings have already blocked Trump’s plans, Delaware and other states still await dozens of court decisions while simultaneously filing more lawsuits.
This federal funding uncertainty looms with just two months until the First State is set to approve its fiscal year 26 budget.
“It's still very uncertain. Just the same uncertainty I expressed in the State of State, I'm not sure how much has changed. It just highlights the need to create what I talked about in the State of the State, which is some sort of reserve for this coming fiscal year for whatever craziness comes down the pike — we have a pocket of money and a system where we can ‘okay, tap into that’ to cover public health needs or public safety needs or needs of veterans or needs of AmeriCorps, etc.”
Meyer is referring to his administration’s proposal to create a $21.9 million federal contingency fund to offset any potential federal funding reductions.
His entire budget proposal increases Delaware’s spending by 7.4% next fiscal year, but the state’s revenue is only projected to grow by 1.9%. Without statewide spending cuts or revenue boosts, Delaware is projected to enter close to a $500 million deficit by fiscal year 28 after draining its entire budget reserves.
Meyer has been a vocal opponent of replenishing the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund, which currently holds close to $470 million, despite his administration being on course to use all of those funds in the next two fiscal years to remain afloat.
To try and offset a potential recession, the governor is proposing creating three new personal income tax brackets for Delaware earners at the $125,000, $250,000 and $500,000 threshold.
Currently, Delawareans who make $60,000 and above are all taxed at the same rate.
Meyer’s tax proposal can only be established via legislation. While State Rep. Sean Lynn (D-Dover) has filed a bill duplicating Meyer’s plans, legislative leadership on both sides of the aisle have expressed some hesitancy.
House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown (D-New Castle) says while the Democratic caucus seems to be in consensus that changes to the personal income tax brackets need to be made, she’s not sure if the final changes will be what Meyer is proposing.
“I think there's general support. I like Rep. Lynn's bill. I'm not wed to any particular bill. Number one is, the wealthy have to pay their fair share. It's not acceptable that a family making $65,000 a year pays the same tax rate as someone making $6.5 million a year. So that's number one, the wealthy need to pay their fair share," Meyer said. "And the second is, we need to provide some relief or at least no increase on anyone making under $100,000 a year. With the proposal that we gave, I think in Rep. Lynn’s bill that cut off is something like $134,000, and for two incomes, like for two filers, for married couples, that's $268,000. Ninety-two percent of Delawareans have taxable income less than that. We think that's a good number. We're not so rigid that you have to do it our way. So we're talking to legislators. We're confident we'll get something done. What that is, we're not really sure. That obviously will play itself out in the coming weeks.”
Meyer is also proposing a cigarette and tobacco products’ tax increase, as well as a $107 million Delaware Department of Transportation fee package that will raise additional revenue for operations and system modernization.
While lawmakers initially speculated this fee package would include a gas tax increase, the Meyer administration has clarified that is not the case, and the additional revenue will primarily rely on toll and DMV fee increases.
In addition to Meyer’s intention of passing a tax bracket change through the legislature by the end of session on June 30, he has also requested lawmakers approve a new public education funding framework on that same timeline.
The Public Education Funding Commission has been meeting since September of last year to come up with recommendations on how to make Delaware’s education funding formula more equitable after the state settled a lawsuit in 2020 over those very inequities.
The Public Education Funding Commission appeared to be in consensus on moving forward with a new hybrid funding model at its meeting just two weeks ago – a framework that is largely advocated for by school administrators.
This approach would combine Delaware’s current unit count system, which allocates funding based on resources and student enrollment, with a system that targets more weighted funding to high-needs students and allows for more local flexibility.
But at the commission’s Monday meeting, some members insisted the current unit count system must be abolished and Delaware should adopt a student-based model.
A student-based formula would ensure schools receive a base amount of funding for each student it serves, and then additional funding would be allocated based on students with higher need, instead of distributing funding based on the amount of resources needed — mainly staff positions.
The commission is set to vote on approving the hybrid approach on Monday, which rapidly accelerates its initial plans to produce draft recommendations by October 2025 and final recommendations by July 2026.
Meyer says he is still mulling over his opinion on a hybrid approach versus a student-based approach, but he remains committed to passing a framework this summer.
“We're looking at it. It sounds like on one side, the chief financial officers – the financial officers who actually work on the formula every day to fund schools for districts – feel very strongly on one hand, and a lot of the equity advocates think that we need to go to more of a pure student needs-based funding formula," Meyer said. "We're going to look at it. I actually don't know the details of the math there. The math is pretty complicated at that level — the unit count versus the hybrid count versus the pure student needs-based. And then once you layer on top of it the local funding, it can get pretty complicated. So we're going to sit down, have a full briefing and understand where we go with it. So beyond that, I don't have much comment on it, but we're looking at it, and I stand by what I said in the State of the State, that there needs to be significant action by June 30, so we've got two months.”
In addition to pushing for legislative action, Meyer has signed nine executive orders since taking office.
The day following his inauguration, Meyer took action on one of his main campaign promises to increase government transparency and efficiency.
The executive order required all state agencies to conduct an internal review, identify areas where improvements can be made, review all audit findings within the last four years and submit an improvement plan to the governor’s office within 90 days.
That deadline was April 22, and spokeswoman for the governor Mila Myles says state agency leaders have submitted those reports and the governor’s office is currently reviewing them.
The order also called for the development of a draft statewide policy for ethics training for state employees by April 1, which Myles says has been completed by the Department of Human Resources in coordination with the Public Integrity Commission.
"It outlines the existing requirements — including Ethics Orientation, acknowledgment of the Rules of Ethical Conduct, and the Oath to the Constitution — and proposes a new biennial training component to reinforce those expectations. While the policy is still under review and has not been finalized, it reflects this administration’s clear commitment to public integrity and accountable governance," Myles said.
As far as his next 100 days and beyond, Meyer says a lot of his focus will be on protecting Delawareans from any potential harm inflicted by the Trump administration.
“What I've found out pretty quickly is that we in state leadership, we as elected leaders, whatever your office around the country, as community leaders, we need to be definitive and clear that we are protecting vulnerable people. That when the federal government goes after certain people — people who are transgender or queer, people who immigrated to this country, were not born here, many of whom are legally here, people who are undocumented but are living peaceful lives, working hard, paying taxes, people who want reproductive freedom, AmeriCorps members who instead of just choosing the highest paying job chose to go and work in their community, sometimes for $15,000 or $20,000 to teach or to help seniors — we will go to extreme lengths to protect people, to make sure that Delawareans, whatever corner you're in, can see the promise of America.”
