New Castle County passes budget

The New Castle County Council yesterday voted to adopt the County’s fiscal 2018 operating and capital budgets. The operating budget is $284 million, and the capital budget is $28 million.

“When we came into office four and a half months ago, we inherited a budget with a projected $64 million in unfunded spending over the next three fiscal years,” said County Executive Matthew Meyer in a statement. “We committed to reduce that deficit through honest, transparent and efficient governance. We thank the members of County Council who, working collaboratively with my administration, passed a sensible budget tonight that takes another important step towards fulfilling that commitment.”

The County plans to issue bonds to pay for the capital costs. But council members won’t authorize the bonds until the County reforms its contracting process.

“We appreciate that several councilpersons voted against authorizing the issuance of bonds tonight to express their dissatisfaction with restrictive county contracting laws my administration inherited that needlessly increase costs to county taxpayers by over $2 million each year,” Meyer said. “In principle, we agree with them. We look forward to working with those councilpersons in future days to issue bonds after modifying contracting rules to spend taxpayer resources efficiently and create job opportunities for all communities of New Castle County.”