The Delaware City Council has altered the language of the income tax ballot measure it aims to present to the community as part of the November election.
During Monday’s council meeting, a resolution was passed to repeal the previous language the council approved last month in order to present a more concise message of how the additional funding would be used in the city. The original version of the proposed ballot language included wording that allowed the city to use the dollars generated by the increase for “general municipal services.”
After a unanimous vote by the council on Monday, the “general municipal services” aspect of the resolution has been removed and now only includes funds being used for the “purposes of paying the costs of capital improvements, maintenance and repair of streets, and the payment of securities issued therefor.”
“After considerations at the staff level and conversations with the City’s Finance Committee, we’ve recommended that this just be for the maintenance and repair of streets and capital improvements,” City Manager Tom Homan said during Monday’s meeting. “So, essentially, it would be an infrastructure levy as opposed to an infrastructure levy-plus. I think that caused some confusion and questions during the March ballot issue, and we think limiting it just to infrastructure and maintenance repair of streets is easier to talk to the public about, easier to inform the public about, and just a tighter type of language that we need for the levy.”
After much deliberation following the failure of the income tax increase proposal in March, officials ultimately decided last month to propose an additional 0.45% which would increase Delaware’s income tax rate from 1.85% to 2.30%.
In addition to the resolution altering the wording of the proposal, an ordinance containing the full ballot language was also presented to the council for a first reading on Monday, as was a resolution stating the city’s intent to consider eliminating the tax credit entirely should the ballot measure fail again in November.
Both the ordinance and the resolution are scheduled for public hearings at the council’s next meeting on July 8.
As part of the city’s efforts to find common ground with its residents to garner support for the tax increase, the income tax credit would also increase from 50 to 65% for those working outside of Delaware. However, should the measure fail again, city leadership has been frank about where it would then turn to find the necessary funding to support the city’s ever-growing infrastructure needs.
“That is something we’ve talked about,” Homan said of possibly doing away with the tax credit. “This is a very consequential matter for the city. We’ve spent a lot of time on it. It’s inarguable that we need the capital dollars for infrastructure, and that just kind of runs the gamut from our roads and our bridges and streets to our sidewalks, alleys, trails, parks, all our facilities, all of that really kind of falls under that umbrella of infrastructure and the need for it for the city.”
Reach Dillon Davis at 740-413-0904. Follow him on X @DillonDavis56.
