Gov. Matt Meyer discusses the state's ongoing legal battle with ChristianaCare, clean energy generation avenues and future education funding reform efforts at his latest monthly press conference.
In an update to on ongoing lawsuit over the contentious and newly created Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board (DSHCRB), Gov. Meyer says the state is in negotiations to reach a settlement.
ChristianaCare filed litigation against the state over a year ago after lawmakers passed House Bill 350, creating a politically appointed oversight body to monitor hospital cost spending. ChristianaCare argues the body violates Delaware’s general corporation law and state constitution by authorizing state control over decision-making authority from certain private hospital boards.
The DSHCRB's purpose is to control rising healthcare costs statewide, with hospitals making up the largest category of the state’s healthcare spend at 42%.
While Gov. Meyer says negotiations with ChristianaCare are ongoing, he also expressed disappointment with the hospital system partnering with out-of-state providers.
“One of my greatest concerns of that is our largest health system is generating revenue based on service almost, not entirely, but almost entirely to Delawareans and taking those proceeds and making investments outside of Delaware and in health care outside of Delaware which is really really concerning," he said.
Gov. Meyer is referring to ChristianaCare’s new partnerships with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) — a snub to Nemours, Delaware’s sole pediatric hospital — and South Jersey’s Virtua Health to create a not-for-profit regional health system.
The governor notes he discussed these concerns with ChristianaCare but did not provide further information beyond his administration is “working on it" and that ChristianaCare is a private company.
He says Delaware's exorbitant price of healthcare is largely credited to a limited supply of providers, which in turn has a negative impact on the cost of care. He believes state regulation and increasing healthcare providers could be the solution.
"I think some is regulatory control, things like House Bill 350, right? Some version of that. And I was very open through [my] campaign that we need increased competition in the state. The more players we have, the more medical providers, the more hospital providers we have, giving insurers and and patients options, the better it is," Gov. Meyer said.
Delaware, along with its neighboring states in the mid-Atlantic region and beyond, are also facing supply and demand issues when it comes to energy.
With a 2.2 gigawatt offshore wind project, which could power over 718,000 homes on the Delmarva Peninsula, tied up in litigation with the Trump administration and Sussex County Council, the First State may need to consider alternate generation projects — and quickly.
Delaware is part of the PJM grid, which includes all or part of 12 other states, and two months ago, Gov.Meyer joined other governors in calling out the grid operator over a lack of transparency and efficacy.
The letter to PJM argues it failed to efficiently connect new resources to its grid and engage in long-term transmission planning amid rapidly rising load growth across the region.
Delaware consumes a lot more energy than it generates, and with the US Wind offshore wind project in limbo, Meyer says the state is exploring other clean generation options, but it could take time.
“I'm interested in wind. I'm interested in solar. I'm interested in nuclear. I'm interested in combined cycle gas. Whatever we can do to expand the power grid, of course keeping in mind environmental concerns, making sure we do things that are environmentally sustainable for our community's future," he said.
State lawmakers recently created a Nuclear Energy Feasibility Task Force to analyze the reliability and environmental impact of deploying small modular reactors in Delaware. The Meyer administration says the membership of that task force should be announced in the coming days.
"A lot of these projects are complex projects. They're complex in terms of engineering, the politics can be complex when you have basically local government, state government and federal government that can all veto a project, not just one time, but over the course of five or 10 or 15 years. It's very, very hard to ever actually execute on these projects," Gov. Meyer said.
"If one offshore wind project— if there's one project that doesn't happen, it's not the end of Delaware, right? There are avenues we can move forward. But in the aggregate, when this is happening all over the place, you look around, you see people's power bills are spiking, we have to put our head down as leaders, regardless of party, regardless of what level of government and we have to deliver," he added.
Generation and consumption concerns also loom as Delaware is poised to become the home of one of the largest data centers in the country known as Project Washington.
While Project Washington is a "by-right" project, meaning as long as it meets all of the permitting and zoning requirements, New Castle County Council legally has to approve it, it doesn't mean the body can't vote "no," and its proposed location in New Castle has raised serious concerns from residents, state leaders and council members alike.
Gov. Meyer previously told Delaware Public Media: “Having a large data center come here and just draw electricity off the grid is just a non-starter for me. I will do everything I can to make sure something like that doesn’t happen."
At Wednesday's presser, he noted the Delaware Public Service Commission has released a draft large-load tariff, meaning data centers would have to pay a hefty fee if they want to connect to the electric grid.
"Data centers present primarily, not exclusively, but primarily, two big problems. One is energy drawing from the grid in a way that spikes energy prices for Delawareans, who have nothing to do with the data center. And the second problem is an environmental problem. They very often use water for cooling in a way that's not really sustainable for the surrounding environment. Those two issues need to be addressed if you want to build a data center in Delaware," he said.
On the education funding reform front, the Public Education Funding Commission — the body tasked with making recommendations on how to make Delaware's current public education funding more equitable — restarted its meetings in August.
As a part of crafting a new version of the First State's funding formula, the body is considering if changes to the school 's referendum model need to be implemented.
This particular issue was highlighted at a recent Smyrna School Board meeting, where teachers voiced concerns over losing the opportunity for salary raises from the district after a referendum failed twice.
"We don't have referenda in Delaware for anything. You go to other states, they have referenda about this issue or that issue — the one issue we have referenda about is paying for our schools, and you have a community like Smyrna that has repeatedly rejected referenda, and this is the consequence of that," Gov. Meyer said. "So we're looking at it and making sure that communities— every community in Delaware should thrive, and a cornerstone of that is making sure you have great schools. And the basic element of that is making sure you have a well compensated, incentivized educator."
Gov. Meyer says he believes real conversations around referendum reform will ensue when the legislative session begins in January and notes Smyrna educators will still receive the state portion of their promised pay raises.
Gov. Meyer says he also remains interested in pursuing school district consolidation for New Castle County schools — something the Redding Consortium for Educational Equity is looking into — arguing too much money is being spent on administration in Delaware.
