Related Story: CEOs: State cuts or $600M deficit by 2025
On the heels of a call for budget reform from the Delaware Business Roundtable, Gov. Jack Markell has signed an executive order creating the Delaware Expenditure Review Committee.
“Delaware’s revenue sources don’t grow with our economy, so even as our state’s economy has improved, we face tremendous budget challenges,” said Governor Markell. “We must do everything we can to deliver the most value to Delawareans at a reasonable cost and the committee I’m creating today builds on six years of work to make government more efficient in providing high quality services to our citizens.”
The Committee established by E.O. 52 provides an additional opportunity at an important time to fully examine other ideas to increase efficiency. This initiative complements the work of the DEFAC Advisory Council on revenues, which put together options for the state to raise revenue in a way that better reflects Delaware’s economic progress.
Markell named Fred Sears, who is set to retire as executive director of the Delaware Community Foundation in December, to lead the committee, which will look for efficiencies in state government.
“This is a unique opportunity to bring together private and public sector leaders to take a look at how the State may be able to find savings,” said Fred Sears, Chairperson of the Committee. “This is not going to be easy, but I think the Governor and legislative leaders have appointed a good team that is prepared to go to work.”
The bi-partisan committee members will include representatives of the unions, government, nonprofits and state government.
They include: Chairman Fred Sears; Fred Cottrell of Richards, Layton & Finger; Rick Gessner of Capital One, representing the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce; for State Auditor Dennis Greenhouse. DEFAC Chairman The Hon. Joshua Martin; Robert McMurray of Christiana Care Health System, representing the Delaware Business Roundtable; Controller General Mike Morton; Ed Ratledge, chairman of DEFAC’s subcommittee on expenditures; Jack Riddle of Community Bank; Jeff Taschner of the Delaware State Education Association; Director of the Office of Management and Budget Ann Visalli, and former State Representative Lincoln Willis.
