The hidden tax bomb in Delaware County Council’s budget

When Democrats won control of Delaware County Council, they promised more efficient and responsible government. Four years later, the results look very different. Instead of delivering reform, Council has saddled homeowners with steep tax hikes — and more increases are lurking just around the corner.

In 2021, the county collected $173 million in real estate taxes. Under the newly approved 2025 budget, that figure will jump to $226 million. That’s an additional $53 million coming directly out of taxpayers’ pockets — an increase of roughly 30 percent in just four years.

Yet even this sharp increase doesn’t tell the whole story. Buried in the fine print is a much larger problem: the 2025 budget isn’t truly balanced.

Rather than restraining spending or finding sustainable efficiencies, Council plugged the 2025 budget gap with one-time dollars that will disappear next year. These include:

• $12.9 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA)
  
• $14 million pulled from the county’s fund balance (its savings account)
  
• $8.2 million in “transfers” with no clear explanation
  
• $6.4 million in additional ARPA dollars earmarked for the Health Department
  

That’s a total of $41 million in temporary cash — money that will not be available in 2026. 

The $8.2 million in “transfers” is the biggest head-scratcher: More than nine months after we first reported on it, we still have no answer on where it is supposed to be transferred from and who is doing the transferring.

The unavoidable question is obvious: when the one-time dollars are gone, how will Council fill the gap? The answer is equally obvious: through yet another property tax hike.

If you add the $53 million in property taxes already raised since 2021 to the looming $41 million structural deficit, taxpayers are staring at what amounts to a 50 percent increase in just a few short years. By the time the next round of adjustments comes due, annual property tax collections could rise from $173 million in 2021 to $267 million or more.

Perhaps County Council thinks the federal government will bail them out, but even if Democrats retake Congress, record high deficits make it extremely unlikely that they would authorize more blank checks to state and local governments. The state government will not save them, either — the lawmakers in Harrisburg can’t even get a regular budget passed. No, Delaware County Council made this mess and will have to fix it themselves.

That is the real trajectory of county finances, and no amount of spin changes the math.

Don’t get fooled again

County Council may insist nothing is set in stone. They may claim they can “find savings” or “manage within existing revenues.” But their own numbers — in their own charts, in their own budget — show otherwise.

The truth is straightforward: unless Council cuts spending or fundamentally changes its spending habits, property owners will once again be forced to cover the shortfall. That means higher tax bills for families, seniors on fixed incomes, and small businesses already squeezed by inflation.

Taxpayers deserve better than budget gimmicks and temporary fixes. They deserve honesty, transparency, and a plan that balances revenues and expenses without constant raids on household budgets.

The bottom line is simple: Council has built a hidden tax bomb into the 2025 budget. Unless they make some significant changes, that bomb will go off next year — and taxpayers will be the ones left to pick up the pieces.

Wally Nunn is the former Chairman of Delaware County Council.