Delco stays silent on mystery $7.6 million that helped backfill 2025 proposed budget

Delaware County is keeping quiet about $7.6 million dollars that mysteriously appeared out of nowhere on the second version of the county’s proposed budget. Without that tranche, the county’s proposed tax increase would have had to remain at 28 percent, as opposed to the 23 percent tax hike the county later put forward and will vote on Tuesday.

The funding shift, however, raises the question of whether the county’s structural deficit is being fully addressed by this year’s tax increase, or if some of that reckoning is being postponed to 2026.

Broad + Liberty obtained one of the earliest drafts of the 2025 budget by taking pictures of the document at the county’s office of open records. Those documents formed the basis of an original report that noted the county would likely be seeking a 28 percent tax increase.

The key document is below, with markup in red by Broad + Liberty.

Then, before a scheduled county council meeting on Tuesday, December 3, some of the fundamentals were changed. Those changes can be seen here:

The main changes are highlighted by the red arrows. Funding from federal ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) dollars increased by $2.6 million, and the “transfers” category saw a massive jump from $510,000 to $8.2 million — an increase of $7.6 million.

Broad + Liberty emailed a request for comment explaining both of those increases early Monday morning which was not returned by deadline. 

The increases in both categories raise serious questions just as the council is taking significant flak from citizens outraged over the proposed 23 percent tax hike.

In the first instance, ARPA funding “must be obligated by the end of calendar year 2024 and expended by the end of calendar year 2026,” according to a webpage on the Government Finance Officers Association.

The county did not answer why all $12.9 million in remaining ARPA funding was not allocated in the first draft of the budget if all of the money must be allocated by the end of the year. The two versions of the revenue table suggest the county had another $2.6 million tucked away somewhere that it was not prepared to allocate.

As for the transfers category, the question remains much the same: Where did this fresh $7.6 million infusion of cash come from?

It seems clear the $7.6 million could not have come from the “fund balance,” which is essentially the county’s rainy day fund. But, as both charts illustrate, the fund balance numbers remain exactly the same across the two versions of the budget the county has offered up.

If the $7.6 million wasn’t in the “rainy day fund,” then the county isn’t prepared to say what other fund had that much liquidity that could be quickly accessed. Presumably that fund would need to be “paid back” after it loaned the 2025 budget so much money.

Although it’s hard to measure public sentiment on such shifts, the $7.6 million allowed the county to approach its citizens with a proposed 23 percent tax increase as opposed to an eye-popping 28 percent increase — thereby possibly dodging even more outrage.

Last Wednesday, residents from across the county testified for hours about the hardships the tax would impose on families and businesses.

Several members of the council have already signaled they intend to vote for the budget proposal put forward last week. The council has a preliminary hearing on Tuesday the 10th at 1:00 p.m., and will officially vote on the budget Wednesday at a 6 p.m. meeting.

Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports

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One thought on “Delco stays silent on mystery $7.6 million that helped backfill 2025 proposed budget”

  1. The Delco Disaster is the same old act from the insane Democrat left. In the northeast, Lackawanna County Democrat Commissioners also hiked taxes by 33%. Outgoing President Biden this week commuted the sentence of the judge from the notorious Kids-For-Cash scandal.
    2025 can’t come soon enough.

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