The Delaware House sends a $6.58 billion operating budget to the Senate for approval and advances a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the imposition of the death penalty.
The multi-billion dollar budget includes at least a 2% raise for all education employees — furthering the goal to raise teacher starting salaries to $60,000 — and a 2% raise for state merit employees.
Other highlights include $3.2 million for universal free school breakfast in public schools, $8 million to create an Early Literacy Emergency Fund for young learners and $40 million in authorization to receive additional federal Medicaid funding to address statewide health needs.
Large chunks of change head to state employee benefits, including $61.2 million for Other Post-Employment Benefits Investments, which funds healthcare for state retirees and will reduce long-term liability, as well as $28 million to cover the state share of state employee and state retiree health insurance premiums.
While the bill received support from the majority of Republicans, several members expressed their concern with allowing the budget to grow by 7.3% while the state’s spending growth benchmark sits at 5.1%, and revenue growth for the next fiscal year is only projected to be 1.2%.
“Our budget growth is still at a level that's not really sustainable. Last year, we passed a bill, HB 350, to put constraints on our number one rated hospitals that said that they have to stay within their budgetary growth, that they have to stay within their benchmarks, and yet we still don't stay within ours," House Republican Whip Jeff Spiegelman (R-Clayton) said.
Rep. Spiegelman is referencing the contentious creation of the Hospital Cost Review Board — a politically appointed oversight body that ensures hospital budgets are adhering closely to the state's healthcare spending benchmark — although he ultimately voted in favor of the budget.
"Judgement day is coming soon," State Rep. Lyndon Yearick (R-Magnolia) said on the floor. "And whether it's going to be increasing taxes or looking at the spending growth— but again, 24 months ago, 10% [growth], last year, 9.97[%], this this year, 7.3[%] — putting it all together, 27.3%. It's just unsustainable; we have more control over our spending."
Rep. Yearick and four other Republican colleagues voted against the bill, but it surpassed its two-thirds threshold and heads to the Senate for approval.
The House also advanced a one-time $37.6 million supplemental budget, which includes $3 million for teacher-driven projects — allowing teachers to request funding for classroom needs as they see fit, $2 million to support victims’ services agencies who have seen reductions in federal funding and $2 million to assist education agencies with disciplinary needs.
Additionally, a constitutional amendment prohibiting the imposition of the death penalty in Delaware clears the House.
The measure to outlaw capital punishment was introduced last year, but it failed in the House, just shy of the required two-thirds vote.
The death penalty remains unenforceable in Delaware following the legislature’s decision last year to remove the legalizing provision after the State Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 2016.
The high court found the capital sentencing statute to be unconstitutional due to its language empowering judges, rather than jurors, to find the necessary facts to impose a death sentence.
Although there is currently no language in state law allowing for the imposition of the death penalty, the door is still open for the sentence to either be brought back or prohibited entirely. The bill's sponsor, State Rep. Sean Lynn (D-Dover), is pursuing the latter route.
Only two Republicans voted in favor of the bill, including State Rep. Mike Smith (R-Pike Creek), but not before noting the state has legalized abortion up until viability while also legalizing medical aid in dying, commonly referred to as physician-assisted suicide.
“My point in all of this is just I think we need to be a little more consistent as a chamber and as a body and as individuals as we think about matters of life and death when it comes to consistency, and I realize both sides of the aisle can show inconsistency in those matters," Rep. Smith said.
The constitutional amendment must now pass the Senate with a two-thirds vote, but even if it succeeds, it must pass in both chambers again in 2027 before it can be added to Delaware’s Constitution.
