(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty)
Delaware County says it has no documents — not a single email, memo, spreadsheet, text, or voicemail — that could shed light on how $7.6 million dollars magically showed up in the county’s second draft of the 2025 budget, thereby giving the county more breathing room on the massive tax increase it was proposing for the upcoming year.
That $7.6 million infusion into a single spending line is important because it represents most of the difference between the county’s first budget draft proposing a 28 percent tax increase, and the subsequent draft that lowered the proposed tax increase to 23 percent. In other words, the tax decrease between the two versions couldn’t have happened without the additional $7.6 million.
But where that money came from has never been described or explained.
Broad + Liberty reported on Dec. 9 that the county declined to answer questions about the nature of the money, namely, if it already belonged to some earmarked pot of money.
After that request for comment was ignored, Broad + Liberty then filed a Right to Know Law request asking for a copy of any document that would delineate “the source of the additional [$7.6 million]…in the ‘transfers’ category.” The request also asked for any text messages between current council members about the money, as well as any voicemails. But the county says there’s nothing.
If the county borrowed from Peter to pay Paul, that money would have to be replaced at some point, creating the possibility that the county has more tax hikes in its future unless it finds a way to create $7.6 million in savings or budget cuts.
In late November, days before the county would hold its first open meetings about the budget, Broad + Liberty went to county offices to get copies of the first draft. A line of the budget marked “transfers” only showed $510,000 being counted as revenue for 2025.

That same budget iteration required a 28 percent tax increase, which Broad + Liberty immediately reported on.
Days later, however, the county began its budget hearings before the public, and the second draft was put into play.
That second draft had the smaller tax increase thanks to the “transfers” line swelling from $510,000 to $8.2 million — a difference of $7.6 million.
The second draft also showed the county using $2.6 million more in American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) funds, money from the federal government’s Covid response meant to help local governments survive any decrease in revenues due to the pandemic. But that revenue is one-time only, meaning it would still have to be replaced in future years.

County Council, all Democrats, ultimately passed the second draft on a 4-1 vote. Councilman Richard Womack, who is facing re-election this year, was the lone dissenter.
If the county does, in fact, need to shore up the $7.6 million with new revenue, that still may not be the full extent of the problem. The 2025 budget also used $12.9 million in ARP funds and $14 million from the “fund balance” — the county’s rainy day fund. Added together, the county may still need to find $34 million in new revenue for the 2026 budget if spending isn’t decreased.
Democrats in the county began campaigning in the latter half of the 2010s on a platform with two main planks: the creation of a county-level health department, and deprivatizing the county’s prison.
After winning council seats in 2017 and later taking a majority on the council in 2020, they made good on the promises. With both of those goals accomplished, citizens who objected to the proposed tax increase for 2025 argued the council had gone too far.
“Springfield Township resident Mark McGann said health services in the county ‘have been crumbling’ since the health department’s creation,” the Delaware Valley Journal reported. “He pointed to recent hospital closures and couldn’t understand why they were happening.”
“You have to make hard decisions sometimes … You’re spending too easily,” McGann said.
“Nick Weston of Wallingford argued the council is using the budget crisis to play hero at the expense of taxpayers. What the council should do, he said, was examine whether the programs were worth it,” the DVJ report continued.
“We do not need all this stuff. Instead, we’d rather keep the money and not have this wide swath of county programs,” he said.
The county argued taxes had been held low for too long, and that inflationary pressures also could not be ignored. In a comment provided to Broad + Liberty for an earlier article on the budget before it was passed, a county spokesperson said, “We recognize our residents are facing the same inflationary pressures that we are facing, but additional revenue is in our proposed 2025 budget that may be necessary in order for us to continue modernizing Delaware County’s government, repairing county infrastructure, and delivering the quality services that our residents deserve and expect.”
County Executive Director Barbara O’Malley also said the government had implemented numerous cost-saving measures under Democratic control, like pension reform, making gradual reductions in the number of employees, and technological upgrades, like moving the county’s phone system to a new voice-over-internet protocol which O’Malley said will save $1 million a year.
At the same time, it’s indisputable that some projects, like deprivatizing the prison, have been far more costly than council projected.
In 2021, the council considered three future scenarios for the prison budget assuming it took back management of the George W. Hill Correctional Facility after it had been privately run for almost three decades.
The highest of those assumptions had a $49.9 million price tag, while the lowest scenario cost $43.1 million.
The council’s latest budget shows the prison’s annual budget going from $53.4 million in 2023, up to $56.6 million in ‘24, finally up to $59.3 million in 2025.