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Representative Mike Ramone has joined the race for Delaware's next governor. l PHOTO COURTESY OF RAMONE FOR DELAWARE[/caption]
With the Delaware Primary Election weeks away, 205,378 registered Republican voters will have the opportunity to decide between three candidates for the governorās office. While the state continues to grow, its demographics shift, too. Older and out-of-state residents are increasingly retiring in Delaware while the Black and Hispanic populations continue to grow, as well.
The next governor will have four years to contend with a struggling school system and housing affordability crisis as they contend with flat revenue growth for state finances. The Delaware Business Times asked five of the six candidates running for governor the same questions on the minds of many in the First Stateās business community, including Representative Mike Ramone. Republican candidate Jerrold Price did not return our request for an interview. The conversation with Ramone has been edited for length and clarity.
Between 2017 and 2023, Delawareās economy has grown 6.7% GDP (gross domestic product), trailing behind the national average of 14%. What plans do you have to bring our economy on track with the national rate?
I think the most important thing I need to do is just share and implement everything Iāve learned from being a businessman over the last 40 plus years. From opening a business to running it effectively, there were hurdles I had to get over and frankly, Iām saddened that somebody canāt do that today. The biggest thing I would do is streamline those hurdles to business and make it quick and easier to complete. Weāve had 32 years to do this with only one party ruling for that long. Itās frustrating. Maybe, hopefully, itās time to get a business focus in the governorās house.
Gov. Carney had disbanded the Delaware Economic Development Office and formed a public-private partnership with the Delaware Prosperity Partnership to make decisions to attract, retain and grow businesses in the state. If elected governor, what do you envision your administrationās role with the DPP?
The Delaware Prosperity Partnership was formed while I was in the House of Representatives; Iāve been a representative now for 16 years. I was first elected under Governor Jack Markellās office. I worked with Alan Levin and Gov. Markell and others when it was the Delaware Economic Development Office. It got to a point where many of us were concerned about using tax payer money to bring in businesses to Delaware that would detract from Delaware businesses. It was very gray. In essence, the businesses were coming to Delaware and taking jobs from and hurting other businesses. We needed to put some state money together with private money and enable that to be a private entity so we could use specific parameters to give incentives for these businesses to come to Delaware.
My intentions would not be to eliminate the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, but to ensure that any one business brought to Delaware would enhance businesses already here. I would not have businesses participate in the Delaware Prosperity Partnership if it would detract from another like-minded business. I believe the biggest advantage of being in the state of Delaware is the geographic location, small size and, what should have been developed a long time ago and I hope weāll develop it more aggressively, our speed in the market.
We have some of the best in the nation like lawyers and sectors because of Pete du Pontās thinking. . . and the corporate structure du Pont brought. When we find the next sector, whether itās biotech or whatever it is, we need to complement it with bills. Secondarily, we need to work with the DPP to cultivate a sector of business that we donāt already have by working with businesses out of state that we donāt have in the state.Ā
There have been several investments made in the past four years through state taxpayer-backed grants such as Graduated Lab Space Funding, Transportation Infrastructure Investment Fund, and the Strategic Grant Fund to help businesses expand or relocate to Delaware. Do you agree or disagree with this approach?
I agree with any approach that is a fair, competitive outreach to bring businesses to Delaware as long as they donāt jeopardize those already building businesses here. I donāt believe Delaware being such a small state is capable of buying their loyalty [in terms of longevity]. Weāve done that in the past and weāve watched them grow extensively and once those incentives were taken advantage of, they moved on. Weāre not a big enough state to get into a bidding war.
I believe very clearly that our size and quality is what should make them want to stay every day that theyāre open because we have a good port to get products in or a good mechanism to get products out, whether itās port, rail, or otherwise. Thatās why I want businesses here that have a competitive advantage every day theyāre doing business here over their competitors without bribing them or giving them a short term bump to get them going. The one thing I think Delaware can do to bump in more business is expedite work in the state to get them the permits and licenses easily and completely. The longer it takes them to get into business, the higher the cost is for them.
The U.S. Census projections have shown that Delawareās senior population continues to grow while our younger residents are leaving. What plans do you have to attract, train and secure workers in our state?
First of all, I love seniors coming to Delaware. Secondly, Iād like to point out that. . . āseniors coming to Delawareā assumes theyāre sitting in their chairs eating bon bons or whatever. There is enormous viability in seniors coming to Delaware to work in nonprofits or mentor programs. Whoās better than a wise mentor to work in our schools? The opposite side of that is attracting, training and securing workers in our state. Attraction should come in [retaining] desirability of our educational system. More importantly, we need to do so much more work in the schools to make them viable and acceptable. The perception is, and a lot of the scores are justifying that perception, that we do not have a lot of enhanced education. We need to enhance the viability in our education system, take the band aids off and reconfigure the way we do education so that itās an incentive in bringing people here.
The second part of that of that is, I have three children and all three moved out of Delaware. If we canāt keep our own in our stateā¦ Most people who have a child, maybe not one or even two, three or more, the children will choose to live outside of our state. Of our nearby states, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, schools are better in all three. I think weāre in the top three or four across the country in terms of expenses. That needs to change if you want people to stay in Delaware and grow a workforce.
The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council has reported tightening revenue projections. The once-in-a generation $1 billion American Rescue Act Funds must be committed by the end of this year, before the new governor is sworn into office. What is your plan when it comes to balancing the budget?
I love this question because the plan is to bring some business sense into Delaware to balance the expense sheet to reflect efficiencies and enhance technology to be able to downsize the amount of persons we need. The vision is from the top but to support from the bottom with the number one focus being on Delawareans. For example, we know that DEFAC is putting out $1.4 billion in extraordinary income, but weāve chosen to ignore deferred expenses that are coming up as state employees retire. You piggy back that with the recovery money and DEFAC has basically ignored basic business practices. When your income is basically eliminated, you have to make changes. I know Pete Dupont shook up the whole state when he said Delaware was in bankruptcy; weāre in a very similar state now.
Weāve increased nearly 30 something percent in fixed expenses and thatās cumulative . . . Itās not sustainable. It includes those deferred expenses that weāve chosen to push off with that money to get things fixed. We are at the most critical point since Pete DuPont; we need somebody who knows how to run a business, a single location, multiple locations, various structures, basic business expenses and enhance quality in the state. The beauty of a Mike Ramone governor is the simple fact that I know how to run business. It would be the first time in 32 years that somebody would be selected based on quality and their ability to help the state of Delaware run efficiently.
About ARPA: Do you think Delaware has used that once-in-a-generation funding wisely and in a way that will solve significant challenges facing the state?Ā If so, what example can you identify where this funding has made a major impact in our state?
I am not going to be that guy who is going to run a campaign being a Monday night quarterback and saying what everybody has done poorly. I will say in hindsight, the covid reaction, I would have done many, many things differently. I am more of the type of leader who will develop the plan, implement the plan and make sure itās clear when youāre at the end. I donāt think that process was done. And I also believe when you have extraordinary income, you give it back with tax reductions.
Iām not trying to be negative, because if I had to do it right off the jump, Iām not sure what I would have done differently but my decisions would have been more sustainable decisions with no debt.
The ARPA money, I often say, was an opportunity missed. How could we go through that, with that much money, and Sen. Coons did a very good job at securing that amount of money with how small our state was, but what I would say is with that extra opportunity, we have a lot of opportunities missed. How could we be sitting here with our education crisis, the opioid crisis, our homelessness catastrophic and the financial stress with so many families is horrendous. Weāve had well over $4 billion in extraordinary income and that is an awful lot of opportunities missed even if we only put half of that in the retirement fund. We have an opportunity with this next governor to finally get a breath of fresh air and a voice of reason.
Gov. Carney has also instituted policies such as the budget stabilization fund as well as passing āone-timeā programs with a supplemental appropriation bill. Do you plan to continue this approach, or will you manage state finances in a different manner?Ā
I would immediately institute the budget stress test, yes. I think the only way youāre fiscally responsible is if things are in place via law. When the Budget Stabilization Fund started, they had appointed a representative from the house, two, and two from the senate. I was one of those appointed. We all worked very, very hard to put in a very strong mechanism in the budget stabilization, we called it the budget smoothing fund. It did exactly what it said it would do so that the political environment that changes every 4 years would have something in place. Much to his credit, Gov. Carney did that with his executive order. He put in standards ā A: savings and B: what he didnāt do ā what do you do with the extraordinary money when itās above the formula. I think that was just a little bit irresponsible at the beginning. But the third part of this is there were some mechanisms on the other side: extraordinary income. If you have billions, a large percentage of extraordinary income, there should be a mandatory tax back to the people. Carney took the government budget smoothing bill and modified it to make it a less inclusive bill. We were smoothing out the peaks and the valleys, Governor Carney kept the peaks but left the valleys. I feel a budget smoothing fund should do both. It stops the peaks, but also stops the valleys. Why do we need to continue holding $1.4, $1.5 and $750 million billion dollars in whichever category weāre in? I donāt think the fundās ability is to spend money. The responsibility is to manage the spending with money in the state.
I would immediately digest the budget stress test. I would not eliminate the Budget Stabilization Fund but would work on legislation to reinforce a budget smoothing fund; thatās in addition to these extraordinary. The budget has more than doubled since I became an elected official and thatās just unsustainable.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF RAMONE FOR DELAWARE[/caption]
Much of Delawareās tax base relies on income and corporate/business taxes. What, if anything, would you change about the tax policy here in the First State?
I am absolutely thankful to Governor Pete duPont every day of my life. The more I learn about how Delaware runs, the more thankful I am to that man. We have generated more than a third of our budget every year since duPont transformed Delawareās corporate environment. He was a visionary in implementing laws that really catered to the banking industry and corporations. That money has been very stable and consistent until now. Delaware was always just a rock of stability and everybody knew what to expect. The only thing that changes a manās decision in business is surprises and external situations. You need to have consistency by what to expect by the state and the tax system you moved into. Taxes lately have been used to enhance the state and weāre milking the golden goose to a point you donāt have a golden goose anymore. Others are starting to get their foot in the door, great businesses, and weāve tightened the margin and I think thatās critically thought out. One of the other top three highest incomes for the state is our personal income tax, right? Itās a third of the money. Iād like to see us work the ebb and flow of personal income tax and the corporations that we have rather than tightening the advantage that we have. We canāt live on this forever.
Letās talk about fintech ā itās going dynamic, crazy. I was lucky enough to be the prime sponsor on the angel investor tax credit bill which goes to help further bio businesses that dove tailed out of the University of Delaware. That really helped biotech growth. We could be the fintech capital of the world or the biotech capitol of the world. I would not do anything to hurt any of our initiatives put in place by Governor duPont; I would put things in place to enhance and create additional sectors.
Much has been said over the years about how slow the permitting process has been, and the Delaware Business Roundtable has long campaigned on getting sites shovel ready in six months. What, if anything, would you change about it - or would you leave it as is?
We have an area that does it often in six months or less ā New Castle County ā and they do it well. I know that we have three counties. I know that we have a terrible, terrible, egregious past toward any business or prosperity in the state. One of my top priorities is to consolidate, streamline, use technology to enhance and improve the information/processes needed. I want to bring in the best practices and just do it. We donāt need to have meetings or taskforces; we just need to get it done. We need to focus on strength, focus on steam and efficiency. . . I would want something in place within 100 days of being in office. I think itās easier than it sounds and it just needs to come from the top.
On Education: What specific policies do you have to improve public education in Delaware.Ā Delaware was recently reported to be ranked 45 in the country in 3rd and 8th grade test scores.
I would simply say, once again, for 32 years, Iāve listened to the 19 school districts that I go to constantly and their chairs talk about the problems we have in our state. Some are beautiful, others are not so much. We need to reconfigure education. One of those problems is that the initiatives of charter schools are so fantastic that so many people want to go and they canāt get in.
I would empower each individual school ā the principals at the top, teachers, then students who are the customers and their parents. School empowerment. And you need to bring in an efficient mechanism to bring the top dollar into that school as soon as possible. We need to look at the global picture - how many schools do we have that we donāt need or are under capacity, schools that could take more capacity? Weāve stopped the charter school mechanism, but how do we give children a choice to get to them? Weāve, in the past, closed charter schools that are failing but we donāt do that extra step to close public schools that are failing.
We need to look at expense, consolidation of efforts, teachers, classrooms, buildings and implement all of that. Funding education the way we are is the most complicated thing Iāve seen in the nation. We need bumpers and boundaries in that. Great education should be rewarded. We need to take the most enormous amount of funding between the 19 school districts ā they would all have their offices, but we have all of this overlay of expense not getting into the classroom. We have one of the highest in the nation in terms of spending before it gets to the child. Those steps are all very important. For the sake of our children, we need to stop social promotion. Age is irrelevant in education. What is important is information: nobody gets left behind and everybody excels in a classroom that theyāre capable of excelling in. If theyāre unable to excel in the classroom, we have other areas for them. In education, God gave every child a cup. Some cups are a bit smaller than others. Our job in education is to fill every cup. We are failing and we need to fill theirs cups or nothing weāve spoken about in this entire interview is even worth it.
The Delaware Business Roundtable recently published the Investment Agenda, which outlined a number of key recommendations for the state.Ā One of those recommendations was to support equitable investment in early childhood education to increase access and improve outcomes for children in Delaware. Agree or disagree? What plans do you have to accomplish this goal?
I believe that the Delaware Business Roundtable is a brilliant group of people that know what we need to do in Delaware to help us excel. I do love the entire project book they put out with all of their initiatives and agree with much of what they said. In this one issue in particular, I believe the earlier we invest in our children the better. Right now, daycare is an issue - parents canāt get to work because they canāt afford child care. We need to tear the band aids off, restructure education and understand that there are certain mile-markers that a child needs before they can get to the next level ā the earlier we can get to the child the better. Having a real curriculum that they can digest in a way that their brains are ready to scoop it up is important. We need to start bringing it in for the sake of our future.
