Wally Nunn: Waiting for the tooth fairy

A recent Broad + Liberty article by Todd Shepherd brings into question Delaware County’s adopted and “balanced” 2025 budget. The County Executive Director’s original proposed budget called for a 28 percent real estate tax increase, which, when added to last year’s five percent increase, meant that taxes would increase by 33 percent.

The County Council in its wisdom sent the budget back to the Executive Director for further study. After a few days the budget came back and only needed a 23.8 percent tax increase. Praise the Lord! The two year tax increase would not be 33 percent higher but only 29 percent higher.

If one looks at the two budgets you might ask, how did they accomplish this reduction? They did not cut expenses — indeed expenses went up several million. What they did was raise a revenue line euphemistically called “transfers” from $510,000 to $8,206,000. Great, you might think, we had more money than we thought. Who knows, it could have been misplaced in somebody’s desk. Now they had a “balanced” budget and only needed a 23.8 percent tax increase.

Believing the public had a right to know where the money came from led Shepherd to ask the county for an explanation. For some reason, the County decided not to respond to the reporter’s request. Shepherd, being the diligent sort, decided to send a more formal Right to Know request. The County, by law, can’t ignore a RTK request and they did indeed respond. I can best sum up the response in this way, “I don’t know nothin”. Their response would have made any organized crime member proud.

How can $8 million show up and nobody knows where it came from?

I am willing to take them at their word and they really don’t know, so I have a theory: the Tooth Fairy left it where someone could find it. 

We all know that the Tooth Fairy can be very generous, we also know that the Tooth Fairy has no money and has to get it from a donor. Here is the unfortunate part, the County’s Tooth Fairy gets her money from you, the taxpayer. That fictional $8 million won’t appear by fairy magic — it will ultimately come out of your pocket.

The $8 million “transfer” is not the only surprise waiting for Delco’s beleaguered taxpayers. The line item labeled “Use of Fund Balance” for $27 million and at least $6 million subsidy in the Health Department Budget add up to at least $40 million in non-recurring revenue which will find its way into your tax bill in near future, at which point your total tax bill would have increased by +/-50 percent.

Of course, County Council could cut the budget by $40 million, but even the Tooth Fairy doesn’t believe that will happen. 

Rest easy, you can be sure that your taxes won’t rise before the next election. That would be way too honest for County Council. After all, they have an election to win.

Wally Nunn is the former Chairman of Delaware County Council.