The Delaware Senate passed two bills on Jan. 22 that address the 2025 reassessment of all Delaware properties.

One bill allows New Castle County to perform a quality-control check on some assessments, especially for nonresidential properties that saw large drops in value. The other gives subpoena power to the finance offices of each county government.

Both bills now head to the House, and if passed, would need a signature from Gov. Matt Meyer.

Quality control in New Castle County

Some commercial properties got a tax break as a result of the newly assessed property tax values. Those breaks were the opposite of what many residential properties saw, which was a jump in their tax bills.

Small-business owners have been affected by higher tax bills, sponsor and Bellefonte Democratic Sen. Dan Cruce said, along with the many residents in his district.

The bill would require New Castle County to conduct a quality-control check on assessments with actual and clerical errors and for nonresidential properties that saw a decrease of at least $300,000 from their previously assessed value or whose tax value is 25% less than its most recent sale price, among other criteria.

“This bill represents a policy solution and a commitment to fairness and transparency,” Cruce said in the session in Dover on Jan. 22.

Wilmington has invested $500,000 into block-by-block assessments to bring to the county for adjustments, along with programs for taxpayers to better navigate their new bills. Wilmington and assessment contractor Tyler Technologies have acknowledged that some residential property values fell “outside of industry standards.”

City Council member Christian Willauer, who has been outspoken about the reassessment’s impact on Wilmington, said this legislation is not enough to fix faulty assessments.

“If the legislature thinks the county doesn’t have authorization, they need to give the county unlimited authorization,” she said. “Don’t limit them on what errors they can fix.”

Any adjustments have to be made by Sept. 30, the bill says, and tax statements with school taxes need to be mailed by Nov. 16. The tax payment deadline is Dec. 31 in the bill. It passed with 17 “yes” votes and 4 absent votes.

County Finance offices could get a boost of legal authority

Every county’s finance office might have subpoena power to fix reassessments in the future.

A bill sponsored by Elsmere Democratic Sen. Spiros Mantzavinos gives a little more legal power to county finance offices to compel particularly nonresidential properties for more information when adjusting assessments based on the commonly used income approach. Lawmakers insisted it will be used sparingly.

It passed with 15 “yes” votes, 1 absent, 1 “no” and 4 not voting.

Shane Brennan covers Wilmington and other Delaware issues. Reach out with ideas, tips or feedback about reassessment and property taxes at slbrennan@delawareonline.com.

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Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer is promising to constrain spending growth in the next state budget to less than 5%.

Meyer announced his intention to cap spending in Thursday’s State of the State speech in front of a joint session of the General Assembly in Dover. In his remarks, he highlighted several other priorities for this legislative session that focused on affordability and government efficiency.

“Over the past year, we have faced challenges, tragedy and unprecedented uncertainty, but I am here to report to you that despite this, the state of our state is strong,” he said.

State budget growth has risen year-over-year

The General Assembly’s 2026 budget was about $6.5 billion, a 7.3% increase from the prior year. That operating budget for fiscal year 2025 totaled $6.1 billion, which was a 9.3% increase from the previous year’s budget.

Speaking to reporters after the speech, Meyer said he will give more details about how he plans to reduce the growth of spending in his budget speech on Jan. 29.

“Of course, that’s only one side of the ledger,” he said. “You’re going to also hear about the revenue side next week. You’re going to see a smaller gap between revenues the state’s taking in and expenditures and our projected budget than you’ve seen in years.”

Republican House Minority Whip Jeff Spiegelman, who represents Clayton, said he welcomed Meyer’s pledge to hold back on spending growth, something he and other Republican lawmakers have complained about for years.

“We’ve been calling for that for 14 years,” he said. “Just in the last six years, we’ve grown 50%. So for him to keep budgetary growth under 5% — I mean, that’s still above inflation — but that would be great.”

The governor did not mention any efforts to reform the state’s personal income tax brackets, which he made a priority last year. State lawmakers did not take action on that.

Under the state’s current income tax system, Delawareans making more than $60,000 a year pay a 6.6% tax rate on earnings above $60,000, which is the state’s top rate. Meyer proposed last year making the new brackets with increased tax rates for income over $125,000, $250,000 and $500,000. However, he struggled to get buy-in from key legislators, including House Speaker Melissa “Mimi” Brown.

The governor said after the speech that he still supports changing personal income tax brackets.

State Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton, D-Newark, said she was disappointed he didn’t highlight the issue in his speech.

“He did talk about the corporate franchise, which is a big part of our revenue stream, but income tax bracket reform is long overdue, and there was a lot of drama about that last year, so interesting that that wasn’t mentioned today,” she said.

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Georgetown has increasingly become a focal point for homelessness in southern Delaware, particularly within Sussex County’s rural landscape. The town’s role as the county seat, and the concentration of services that come with it, has shaped why people experiencing homelessness are more visible there than in surrounding municipalities.

A recent study surveying 247 people between October 2024 and May 2025 estimates that between 1% to 2% of Georgetown’s population may be experiencing homelessness, a rate significantly higher than that of similarly sized towns. The data was collected through sustained street outreach efforts largely in Georgetown and minimal additional outreach in the coastal and western side of Sussex County.

A glimpse into the data

Stephen Metraux, a professor of public policy at the University of Delaware who analyzed the survey data, said the findings confirm what service providers have long observed on the ground.

“Georgetown’s really gotten slammed with homelessness, as homelessness in Sussex has increased,” he said. “Georgetown did become kind of a hub, kind of more of a regional hub than a magnet.”

While more than 200 people initially engaged with the survey, many opted out before completing it, making the final dataset smaller than the total number of people contacted. Even so, Metraux said the results were striking, particularly looking at Georgetown’s population.

“Based on that data, we’ve got conservatively between 100 and 200 people on the streets at a given time in that survey database,” he said. “Of course, that survey database misses people. When you figure in people that she’s missed, you’re talking about 200 or 300 people, which is kind of the estimate that people are using for homelessness in Georgetown,” he added.

With Georgetown’s population at about 8,098 people as of 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Metraux said that estimate places homelessness at roughly 2%, a figure that stands out even when compared to major cities.

“And you do a comparison with the city of Philadelphia or any like larger cities, and a comparable percentage there is less than 1%,” he said. “You have a small town that’s slammed by homelessness right now and that was surprising.”

The data also shows that people experiencing homelessness in Georgetown are often long term. More than half of respondents reported being unhoused for over a year, a trend Metraux said is closely tied to a lack of housing availability and affordability.

“In Sussex, you have most of the housing construction at the higher end, you have zoning that makes it much harder to build a kind of multifamily housing,” he said. “Even lower-end housing, wages haven’t kept up with rising rents.”

An aging unhoused population is another growing concern. About 16% of respondents reported being homeless for more than 10 years, a pattern Metraux said reflects broader national trends.

“That’s not just in Delaware, but that’s nationwide,” he said. “A lot of them are receiving disability benefits, but those benefits are not enough to have sustainable housing unless you have some kind of a housing subsidy along with that.”