Newark City Council will hear a request to increase the city’s maximum lodging tax at its meeting Monday.
Newark’s city charter currently allows Council to impose a lodging tax of up to 3%.
City Manager Tom Coleman estimated that brings about $900 thousand to the city per year. But he reported public safety costs are on the rise, largely due to police salaries in a competitive law enforcement marketplace..
“Obviously, public safety is number one,” Coleman said. “It's our highest priority, so we do what we can to try to protect that service. It's public health and public safety are the two most critical things that we provide as a local government.”
The city’s budget went up $1.4 million in 2026 despite non-police spending decreasing by about half a million dollars. Coleman wants to see the maximum lodging tax increased to 5% to help address that increase.
Coleman added this isn’t the first time Newark officials have considered increasing the lodging tax, but it didn’t get past this stage.
“In order to go any higher than 3%, we would need to amend our charter,” Coleman explained. “So the process to do that is council would need to pass a resolution with at least three quarters support of our council, which is six of seven… to move that resolution on to our legislators, who would then need to draft a bill that would need to pass.”
The proposed resolution said Delaware promotes and benefits from the tourism industry; Newark alone has over 900 hotel rooms.
If approved, Council will have the ability to impose a lodging tax of 5% in addition to the state’s lodging tax.
