The New Castle County Council approved 2018 operating and capital budgets, but did not pass an ordinance to authorize the issuance of bonds to fund capital projects.
The budget comes without a property tax increase.
“When we came into office four and a half months ago, we inherited a budget with a projected $64 million in unfunded spending over the next three fiscal years. We committed to reduce that deficit through honest, transparent and efficient governance,” stated County Executive Matthew Meyer. “ We thank the members of County Council who, working collaboratively with my administration, passed a sensible budget tonight that takes another important step towards fulfilling that commitment.”
On the council agreeing to issue bonds, Meyer offered the following:
“We appreciate that several councilpersons voted against authorizing the issuance of bonds tonight to express their dissatisfaction with restrictive county contracting laws my administration inherited that needlessly increase costs to county taxpayers by over $2 million each year. In principle, we agree with them. We look forward to working with those councilpersons in future days to issue bonds after modifying contracting rules to spend taxpayer resources efficiently and create job opportunities for all communities of New Castle County.”
