Wally Nunn: Delaware County Council encourages economic apartheid
Upper Darby and Radnor sit just a few miles apart in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. One is working-class. The other is one of the wealthiest communities in America. Yet the family in Upper Darby pays roughly twice the effective property-tax rate of their neighbor in Radnor — despite earning less than half as much.
That single fact exposes the quiet cruelty baked into how Pennsylvania funds schools and local government.
Here’s the math:
- Median household income in Upper Darby: ~$69,000
- Median household income in Radnor: ~$159,000
Combined (county + municipal + school) millage rate for 2025:
- Upper Darby: ~43 mills
- Radnor: ~22 mills
A typical Upper Darby home assessed at $165,000 owes about $7,100 a year in property taxes — 4.3 percent of its value. A typical Radnor home assessed at $667,000 owes about $14,800 — 2.2 percent of its value.
That’s double the rate on half the wealth.
For many Upper Darby families earning $50,000 or less, that $7,100 bill consumes fifteen to twenty percent (or more) of their entire income before utilities, insurance, or groceries. In Radnor, the typical homeowner pays under nine percent of household income in property taxes.
And the final insult? Despite shouldering a far heavier burden, Upper Darby School District spent $14,728 per student in 2022. Radnor spent $25,264 — 70 percent more.
The system doesn’t just fail to be progressive. It is aggressively regressive. Lower property values trigger higher effective tax rates, which forces working-class towns to tax their residents harder just to deliver basic services. Wealthier towns tax heavily, hoard commercial ratables, and lavish their schools with resources.
A form of “economic apartheid” is encouraged, and the more successful are rewarded for leaving a working class community. I sold a home in Upper Darby and bought a home in Newtown Square. My new home is worth a multiple of my old home and yet my taxes are 50 percent less. The system is fundamentally flawed.
This isn’t an accident. It’s how Pennsylvania chose to fund local government a century ago, and we’ve never fixed it.
Since Democrats took full control of Delaware County Council in 2020, the county real-estate tax has jumped 55 percent. The county has also borrowed $415 million that taxpayers will repay — with interest — for the next two decades. Those increases land on top of already crushing school and municipal taxes.
Their response, essentially, is “let them eat cake.”
When the one-time federal Covid money and rainy-day funds dry up — as they soon will — the next wave of tax hikes is inevitable. And once again, the heaviest weight will fall on the communities already paying the highest effective rates.
This is not sustainable. Families in Chester, Upper Darby, Yeadon, and Darby Borough are being priced out of the only county they’ve ever called home — not because they overspent, but because the tax code itself is rigged against them.
We keep hearing that “everyone has to pay their fair share.” But the numbers show the working-class share is already twice as large, relative to income and home value, as the share paid in the county’s wealthiest enclaves.
Fairness isn’t complicated. It starts with three steps Delaware County leaders have so far refused to take:
1. Publicly acknowledge the regressive nature of the current system.
2. Stop your reckless spending spree.
3. Lead the fight in Harrisburg for a new school-funding formula that doesn’t punish towns simply because their homes are worth less.
Until that happens, every new tax increase and every new bond issue is another brick in the wall separating Delaware County’s haves from its have-nots.
Working families here aren’t asking for a handout. They’re simply asking for a tax system that doesn’t treat them as second-class citizens in their own county.
It’s time for Delaware County to give them the tax fairness they deserve.
Wally Nunn is the former Chairman of Delaware County Council.
1-Wally Nunn is a Delco treasure.
2-Never forget that the demographic diaspora of eastern Delaware County is by a calculated design. Over the past generation, Democrats employed novel Section 8 policies, subprime loans, and illegal immigration – all to turn Delco blue.
Every property owner bitches about property taxes and rightly so. The wonder is that now there is a credible property tax elimination proposal, yet it is not generating the kind of support needed to turn it into a reality. What a shame, it is like taxpayers don’t want to see their taxes become much more fair and less burdensome. Perhaps it is like the old Scottish adage: “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” One thing is certain, no matter the logic, no matter the morality, no matter the benefits to the taxpayer, you will never see a true believer democrat supporting property tax reform, much less elimination. Replacement taxes for the property tax would be much more transparent and immediate; this put tax and spend policies at risk.
Mr. Nunn,
Your entire argument… is ridiculous. Here is a different (sarcastic) idea: let’s give all of YOUR money to FEEDING (not education; just basic food) really poor children in Kolkata, also known as Calcutta. Basic food; because, really, education is a luxury. Education… that is for elites. Just simply feed these other children. They’re humans. And they were crafty enough to not get aborted. And they need to eat.
Let’s be reasonable and agree; these children might not be in your neighborhood, nor even in Pennsylvania; BUT THEY NEED FOOD. WHAT ARE YOU? ARE YOU A MONSTER?!?
That is exactly the garbage presentation of the blurred positions you are pushing.
Cool. You made money… so… let’s spend your money! And guess what? We get to take your money away from you! Because you have too much money Wally Nunn! Who cares that the teachers’ union is corrupt and doesn’t know the difference between a man versus a woman. They need money! Your money!
Wait! You only wanted the PA children to excel? Why stop there with your arbitrary lines?
Mr. Sweeney,
Perhaps you should reread what I wrote. Nowhere in my piece did I advocate more spending, in fact if you go over my articles you will find I am a constant critic of the obscene spending binge that local governments have been on.
If you were in the area in the 90s you would know that I constantly fought spending at all levels of government. Did you come to my defense when my life was threatened when I took on SEPTA, we cut $70,000,000 from the budget and close to 1000 employee. When my house was surrounded by angry union workers where were you?
Perhaps you did not read my article about schools, in which I argued that money was not the answer.
When I was first elected to County Council I received a letter from an elderly lady who lived in Lansdowne. In the letter she told me that her income was $8,300 a year and her real estate taxes were $3,000( I might be off a little but that close) and was there a way for her to pay her taxes over time, there wasn’t. Every dollar the count spent as long as I served on council had to be justified as being important enough to take it from her.
What my article addresses is the Lady and others who find themselves in difficult circumstances. I was raised by a mother of six whose husband died at 33, please understand I am not advocating spending more I am only advocating fairness.
Wally
The entire premise that the metric of the money spent per student is in any way a valid measurement in which to asses fairness, or directly corelated with the quality and effectiveness of one’s education, is both presumptive and erroneous. It is at root actually an evil premise. It is why one of the deadly sins is Envy.
To claim there is somehow an unfairness because wealthy neighborhoods pay less as a percentage of their home value or wealth, is one reason I’m glad the 2nd amendment is still in effect. “Hey, they have extra money so let’s go get some of it!” Some actual measurements that do show a direct correlation to the results students achieve are two parent households and the the quality of the teachers. We can’t control the two parent households metric, but we can control the quality of the teachers. However, PA has instead decided to subject themselves to a corrupt teachers union. As parents we make hard budget choices, and one of them is so my youngest can attend a parochial elementary school. For me the tipping point was because our public school has signs in many of the classrooms that literally says: “This is a place where human rights are respected and where gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, two spirit, and queer people, and their friends, and allies are welcomed and supported.” It could simply say: All are welcome. But the entire point of that sign is to segregate people, and to train the children to think a certain way. (Two spirit people… that must be what the plus sign if for?)
Pennsylvania law (24 P.S. § 13-1327.1) outlines homeschool requirements but provides no financial support. Families cover all costs, estimated at $500–$2,500 per student annually for curriculum, materials, and activities—far below public school per-pupil spending. People can homeschool and live in a poor neighborhood, what about them?
Thank you for your past service. Please stop carrying water for these communists and their schemes, and understand that spending per student is not a valid metric to measure anything useful other than how much tax money is being wasted. County and Municipal taxes are local so maybe we should change that formula, too? Any, and every single time, you give large bureaucracy or government more power they make it worse. If you change things I guarantee it will get worse and cost more money than anyone says it will.
It is a horrible idea to give PA any more power based upon a questionable premise.
Perhaps after you stop hyperventilating you might be interested in an article I wrote.
https://broadandliberty.com/2024/03/04/wally-nunn-the-achievement-gap-is-coming-from-outside-the-classroom/
Read it. Excellent article.
What subsequently happened after your fine 3/4/24 article, to find yourself currently under this irrational and mistaken trance? You wrote: there is “cruelty baked into how Pennsylvania funds schools and local government.” What cruelty? Home school families receive zero dollars in PA and their results are excellent. No one is crying for them. So what exactly is cruel? That Radnor and Newtown Square home values are racing away from Upper Darby home values? Well, why has Upper Darby declined so much since the 1990s? Because when I was a child in Upper Darby in the 1980s it was great, e.g. Summer Stage, kids playing outside, etc. Now Summer Stage is still around, although they have completely gone off the rails with their LGBTQIA+ propaganda, but you know what has really changed? Based on the latest available American Community Survey (ACS) data, approximately only 48% of occupied housing units in Upper Darby Township are owner-occupied (homeowners.)
That means the majority of people in Upper Darby rent.
Know why? They are filled with folks trying to escape Philadelphia’s public schools. Most people in Radnor own their homes. That’s a direct and significant reason for the discrepancy in home values between those two Township’s. And watch what happens to Haverford Township, and their resting-on-their-laurels school district, in about 10 years. Because they are literally undergoing a substantive Zoning Ordinance change process in Haverford Township (currently 88.5% are owner-occupied/homeowners) and my guess is it will be flooded with renters over the next decade… and their school district will get swamped by people trying to escape Upper Darby’s school district. And it will start its own Upper Darby death spiral.
Regardless: if you change the way we fund public schools, and use an irrational reason to make that change (because some few wealthy neighborhoods aren’t paying a large enough percentage of their home value comparative to others, yet they’re still spending more dollars on a per student basis), you can trust that things will get worse and cost more money in PA schools. Why? Answer: Because our society has been taken over by godless Communists. That is at the root of what is going on in this society.
I am disappointed to see that a lot of the conversations seem to revolve around school issues that are only tangentially related to the main topic which is elimination of property taxes. We are at a point when the chances of eliminating property taxes as a government funding source is gaining traction, but it is going to need a laser-like focus on getting legislation passed and signed to make it a reality. There are many issues I think could be addressed by Broad + Liberty and that are critical to eliminating property taxes. (a) will it only apply to school districts, or will it also include local and county government property taxes? (b) does it apply to only owner-occupied residential property or include rental properties, or condominiums? Does it include warehouses, manufacturing facilities, does it include farmland both producing and fallow? What tax will replace the property tax and how will such a tax be constrained (to help keep government spending under control). This is an ideal issue for Broad + Liberty and I hope it will not fade away into just a past discussion
George,
You want to upend 350+ years of policy in PA… and what will be those unintended consequences? Are you approaching the issue with an honest approach? Because in Pennsylvania, 85–95% of locally raised revenue comes from property taxes, and for most school districts property taxes make up 60–80% of their entire budget (the rest is state and federal aid). So in PA, when a homeowner looks at their property tax bill, roughly 70 cents of every dollar (often more) goes to the local public school district. The remainder is split between the county and the municipality (township/borough/city). That is why property-tax relief debates in PA almost always revolve around schools — because that’s where almost all the money is actually going.
The majority of PA personal income tax only began in 1971 and is flat and low at 3.07%. States that replaced property taxes with income/sales taxes (e.g., California after Prop 13, Michigan 1994) saw huge swings and repeated school funding crises.
People pay for the local public services (especially schools) they actually consume and choose. Families move to better school districts and municipalities, and pay those higher property taxes willingly. Centralized systems break the link between what you pay and what you get; you can end up subsidizing someone else’s schools or municipal services with no ability to “vote with your feet.” Because the tax is so visible and local, millage increases require public votes or at least public meetings.
State takeover or full state funding removes most local budget discretion; Harrisburg politicians 200 miles will decide how much to spend on your schools or municipalities. Property values and tax bases are far less volatile than income or sales tax receipts. PA school districts almost never have mid-year budget crises, even in recessions. Local property taxation correlates with higher homeownership rates and more civic engagement.
Most importantly these politicians can no longer even define what the word “woman” means. These demonically possessed people, currently in charge of the school unions, purposely attack the moral principles, ethical standards, and values that have significantly influenced Western culture, politics, and law in the United States. We don’t need to condense decision making and power and hand it over to them any more than we have already.
Trying to read through the House Bill for property tax relief is like trying to read Sanskrit, but one thing stands out that is not being debated and that is the legislative finding that young people are not moving into the state because it treats retirees too favourably. Thus, the state’s economy doesn’t grow because it is a haven for retirees. The proposal to address this: levy an income tax on all retirement income except social security. Never mind that if you lived and worked in Pennsylvania pension contributions have been taxed by the state. Pennsylvania never had an IRA type tax break; contributions were after tax. Also, it seems odd that the sponsors of the legislation would target retirees as the reason the economy is not growing. It is beginning to look more and more as if property tax elimination is just a sham, either no reduction in total tax burden or an actual increase in taxes paid.
Nothing wrong with your premise except that retirees whose pensions are minimal and who purchased a home while working are now in financial straits. Between increases in appraised value and increases in millage, the tax bills increase beyond the ability to realistically pay, the demographic we are discussing are those who did not move to an expensive school district but find themselves facing yearly increases in property taxes anyway, even if the school district is less than expensive. Having been a township supervisor, I was in a position of listening to residents and their tax issues at each annual budget session. These were not crybabies, but hard-working people who did not have the luxury of high dollar salaries during their working lives. These were also people who had homes that were only modestly valuable and if sold to move into a retirement facility, would only fund a few years. I want to address the idea of public influence on annual local government/school district/county budgets. My experience was that people showed up at the budget meeting, bitched their bitch and left dissatisfied. People refused to believe we were constrained by a lot of mandated expenses and attempts to cut expenses invariably created howls of anger. For example, one area to save money was to not plough the roads until at least 2 inches were on the ground, nope, people wanted a “bare pavement” policy. Another, extend road life by using tar and chips, nope, people wanted regular pavement laid as if it was an interstate. To illustrate another point, I once heard a school board member tell a citizen that it was too bad, they were having trouble with the property tax amount, maybe they should sell their home and move into a mobile home. That is about how members of the board felt about the public and their concerns. Public input meant squat. Budgets were passed, taxes increased all justified by the “we don’t have any choice in this.”