The Springfield Township Board of Commissioners has approved the municipality’s 2025 budget which holds the line on spending and implements no municipal property tax increases. Reflecting an ongoing commitment to fiscal responsibility, the township budget for 2025 remains at $22.645 million – the same level as 2024. The millage rate also remains at 3.92 mills, the same level as 2024.
“The Board of Commissioners recognizes that many local residents are facing financial challenges at this time, with families and individuals making difficult decisions to manage their own household budget,” said Jeff Rudolph, president of the board. “This budget represents a concerted effort to maintain essential municipal services, infrastructure improvements, and operations while holding the line on new spending. We entered our annual budget process with a clear goal of not increasing property taxes and I’m pleased that we were able to accomplish that.”
Approximately $14.8 million of the township’s $22.65 million budget comes from tax collections. The reminder of the budget is funded through other revenue receipts. The largest portion of the budget is allocated to the township police department, which is funded at $6.82 million. Another major element of the budget includes trash collection, which is funded at $2.91 million. While many municipalities in Delaware County require residents to contract with private waste disposal and recycling companies at an additional charge, Springfield Township continues to provide these functions as a government service.
One of the major capital projects in 2025 will be the much-needed renovation of the township’s municipal and police building. As part of the renovation project, the Springfield Township Police Department will temporarily relocate its operations to 601 Baltimore Pike, Springfield in a building that was formerly occupied by a Jenny Craig Weight Loss Center (adjacent to Party City). That relocation is expected to occur on or about January 24th. As always, in case of an emergency, residents are urged to dial 911.
In December, the township’s administrative offices were temporarily relocated to Suite 201 at Springfield Square (1001 Baltimore Pike) to accommodate renovations and restoration of the existing township building, including asbestos removal. The asbestos removal process began on Monday, January 13th. During the temporary relocation, the phone number and mailing for the township administration remain unchanged: (610) 544-1300 and 50 Powell Road, Springfield, PA 19064.
Unfortunately, residents will see some slight fee increases due to increased rates from external entities that provide sanitary sewer service and municipal solid waste disposal to Springfield Township residents and businesses. To be clear, these are not rate increases implemented by the township, but by outside agencies and they are being “passed on” to consumers.
Costs paid by the township on behalf of residents to the Delaware County Solid Waste Authority have increased significantly, prompting an increase in the annual refuse fee from $300 to $330 per household. Similarly, the four sewer authorities that serve the township have also increased their rates. As a result, the sanitary sewer fee will rise 0.75 cents per 1,000 gallons per household. Again, these increases are essentially pass throughs.
A prison employee at the Delaware County prison is currently under investigation for smuggling contraband into the facility, but the same employee also served time in the county in the 1990s for felony charges for the manufacture or possession of controlled substances.
When asked about the incident, the county says it now has a “second chance” policy where it will hire felons to work at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility provided the person’s criminal behavior is far enough in the past.
Broad + Liberty obtained a copy of a “serious incidentreport” showing that prison officials stopped Roger Prattis “based on intelligence suggesting he was introducing contraband into the facility.”
The incident report notes that investigators claim to have found a “Ziplock bag containing loose cigarettes,” and a search of Prattis’s car yielded other items that investigators are still researching. For example, the report said it found a “heavily stained sheet of paper found in a folder the employee brought into the facility[.]” Drugs can sometimes be smuggled into a prison by soaking the substance into paper where it can later be smoked or ingested orally.
A court document indicates law enforcement officials charged Prattis for the possession or manufacture of drugs in 1993. He entered a guilty plea and was sentenced in January of 1994 to a minimum of three months or a maximum of 23 months.
The county will soon be marking the third anniversary of the government taking back management of the GWHCF after the prison was run by private contractors for almost three decades.
In a statement from a spokesperson, the county said it is open to hiring persons with criminal records, even when that person is applying to work at the prison.
“Mr. Prattis, who was hired as a laundry technician on July 25, 2024, disclosed his prior conviction from the 1990s during our comprehensive hiring process. His employment was granted based on a thorough evaluation of his rehabilitation and the absence of continued criminal behavior over the last three decades,” the spokesperson said. “Delaware County does not have a policy of categorically excluding individuals with past felony convictions from employment because we believe in rehabilitation and providing second chances, which aligns with our broader commitment to support reintegration of formerly incarcerated individuals into the community.
“The incident on December 19, 2024, in which contraband was allegedly introduced into GWH, is currently under rigorous investigation. We take such incidents seriously and are dedicated to maintaining the security and safety of all facilities under our jurisdiction. Mr. Prattis’s hiring reflects our belief that individuals can positively transform their lives and contribute to society if given the opportunity.
“As we move forward, Delaware County will continue to assess and refine our employment practices to ensure they are both fair and effective in fostering a safe and rehabilitative environment. This commitment includes ongoing training for all staff to uphold our policies and procedures. We remain dedicated to transparency and accountability in all aspects of our operations and will provide updates on the matter as they become available.
“We thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and assure you that we are taking every step necessary to address it appropriately,” the spokesperson concluded.
It’s not currently clear whether the last prison operator before the county — in this case, the GEO group — had any policy about hiring persons with criminal backgrounds.
The investigation of a prison employee who is also a felon is yet another attention grabbing incident since the county took over management of the facility in March of 2022.
Last January, two other employees were arrested for allegedly smuggling fentanyl into the prison. On two different occasions since the government-management takeover, the prison allowed the wrong person to be released.
More serious incidents also have not only shaken the prison but also threaten to force the county into serious liability payouts.
For example, the prison is facing a lawsuit by the estate of a man who is widely believed to have been murdered by his cellmate just weeks after the county took over the facility. In another case, the mother of an inmate who took his own life in June of 2022 is also suing the county.
Meanwhile, the prison budget has grown dramatically since the county takeover.
In the last complete year in which a private operator ran the facility, the county’s outlays for the prison were $47.3 million. In the upcoming 2025 budget, the county plans to spend $59.3 million running the facility, according to the 2025 proposed budget.
Just before voting for a 23 percent property tax hike, Democrat Delaware County Councilwoman Christine Reuther advocated for a pay raise.
“I am on a fixed income. My income has not gone up in the five years I’ve been on council,” she said at a recent Council meeting.
Public records show that council members earn approximately $51,000 per year for what is considered a part-time position.
Reuther’s council salary isn’t her sole source of income. Her official county biography said she operates a “small business consulting practice” that serves individuals, businesses, non-profits, and partnerships.
Reuther argued that’s going to change next year because her husband plans to retire. “He’s going to be on a fixed income.”
Their six bedroom house featuring a “large master bedroom with a skylight” is valued at an estimated $784,000 to $913,670.
An apoplectic Wallace Nunn told DVJournal that Reuther’s comments went beyond the pale. “How dare you equate your privileged situation to someone living on Social Security or [who] is trying desperately to hang onto their row home while you live in your $900,000 [home].”
But Reuther insisted she’s still in a challenging financial spot.
“[T]he one thing I get is I get health care benefits as an employee of the county, and I’m now paying contributing towards those benefits, which my previous council members didn’t have to do because they wouldn’t vote to do that,” she said.
Former Delaware County Council Chair Andy Reilly found Reuther’s comments ridiculous.
“There hasn’t been a pay raise for 40 years. She knew what she was getting into,” he told DVJournal.
Reilly said previous Republican-led councils left governance to the executive director because the council was supposed to be part-time and term-limited.
“I guess this is a set up to try to raise Council salaries, which wouldn’t surprise me,” he commented.
Delaware County has a $27 million structural deficit. Although County Executive Director Barbara O’Malley attributed the deficit to inflation and a lack of tax increases, records indicate that county spending has increased by $75 million since 2020.
It highlights the role federal COVID relief money played into the expansion of government in Pennsylvania. The county’s 2021 budget was $246.5 million. The county passed a $321.4 million budget last week.
Similarly, the state of Pennsylvania’s budget grew from $39.8 billion in 2021 to $47.6 billion this year. The Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office warned last month the state’s general fund will be emptied next year and the Rainy Day Fund empty in Fiscal Year 2026-2027.
That caused the Commonwealth Foundation to warn tax hikes of several billion dollars were in the Keystone State’s future due to the reckless spending.
As for Reuther, she said no one should feel sorry for her. “I’m just saying I’m in the same position that a lot of the people are, that folks have been writing me about.”
Nunn agreed with Reuther on not feeling sorry for her. “These are the words of somebody that’s desperate because they don’t even begin to reflex reality. … You have no shame,” he said.
Delaware County could have saved $2.1 million dollars when it issued bonds this summer but chose not to, preferring instead to go with private entities as opposed to a regional government-associated entity set up for the sole purpose of saving governments money on loans.
That’s according to a loan analysis document from the June meeting of the Delaware Valley Regional Finance Authority, or DVRFA.
The DVRFA was created by Philadelphia’s four suburban counties in 1985 with the specific aim of providing low-cost loans, like bond issuances, for any kind of government in that geographic area, whether it be school district, municipality, or county. In essence, the DVRFA decided to pool money from the counties and lend from it to local governments directly, issuing its own debt to save costs.
When Delaware County decided this year to issue bonds through private lenders, it could have borrowed from the DVRFA but decided to take a more costly route, the DVRFA analysis concludes. After accounting for all items associated with the bond offering like capitalized interest, underwriting fees, and “other issuance costs,” Delaware County “paid $2,124,851 more debt service than a comparable [DVRFA] Loan,” the analysis concludes.
The otherwise sleepy and staid world of bond issuances takes a totally new life at present, as Delaware County has recently acknowledged it is struggling with a significant structural deficit, has an alarmingly low “rainy day fund,” and as a consequence is likely to approve a 23.8 percent tax increase on citizens for 2025.
The county is standing by its decision, but did not necessarily dispute the DVRFA’s analysis either.
“We are committed to being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, and financial markets are extremely complicated,” a county spokesperson told Broad + Liberty. “We consulted with leading experts in public finance and municipal bonds and determined, with their advice, that seeking funding on the open market was the most prudent course of action.”
The county has shown, however, an affinity for the DVRFA. According to the same June document, Delaware County is the government with the largest amount of outstanding loans with the DVRFA.
Delaware County’s representative on the DVRFA board is David Landau, who, as secretary, signed the minutes of the June document at issue in this report. Broad + Liberty also reached out to Landau to see if he could give deeper insight into the choice, but that request for comment was not returned.
The analysis also notes that law firm Ballard Spahr acted as the “bond counsel.”
Ballard Spahr has political ties to the current council. According to Councilwoman Christine Reuther’s LinkedIn resume, she worked for the firm for about five years ending in 1993. In a more recent show of those close connections, however, Ballard held a fundraiser for Reuther in 2019, according to a page from Reuther’s campaign website. Although the advertisement for the fundraiser on the website has since been taken down, it was saved through the Internet Archive, a nonprofit that archives billions of webpages daily to create a historical archive.
The firm’s political committee gave $2,000 to Council Chair Monica Taylor’s re-election in 2023.
As Broad + Libertyreported in July, the county’s spending on outside, third-party counsel has skyrocketed since Democrats took control of the council after the 2019 elections. In that last year of Republican control, spending on third-party attorneys or law firms was about $400,000. In 2023, that figure had ballooned to $4.5 million — the highest spending of any of the collar counties.
Ballard Spahr has been the biggest recipient of that new spending. In 2023, it billed the county $582,780.
The county did not provide a response for a question seeking the amount of Ballard’s fees for its work as bond counsel.
When Broad + Liberty does an analysis of third-party attorney spending, it begins by filing a Right to Know Law request seeking documents showing any spending that fits that description. It’s not clear, however, if fees from acting as bond counsel would be included in those kinds of documents because the payment is folded into the overall cost of the bonds, much like a real estate agent or title company is paid out of closing costs and not from the buyer’s personal checking account.
While there’s no explicit evidence of any kind of quid pro quo between Ballard Spahr and the council, Democrats previously assailed Republicans for exactly these kinds of relationships.
“I’ve come to conclude a big part of the problem is that Delco citizens pay a corruption tax,” said Democratic former councilman Brian Zidek, in 2019. He pointed out what he thought was “instance after instance of no-bid contracts being granted to Republican Party insiders.”
In 2019, the Philadelphia Tribune reported on the Democrats running for council pledging to restore transparency, “with Schaeffer and fellow Democratic candidates Monica Taylor and Christine Reuther calling for an end to ‘sweetheart deals’ and patronage.”
“[Delaware County] was always a place where you had to know a guy to get something done,” Reuther said at the time. “We’re running to change that.”
Council is expected to vote Wednesday night on the proposed 2025 budget which includes the 23 percent tax increase. Enough council members have already signaled their intention to vote for the budget to reasonably expect that it will pass.
(Editor’s Note: Delaware County Council did pass the 2025 budget Wednesday evening, raising taxes 23 percent.)
The cost of living in Delaware County is out of control and one of the main contributors is local governments raising taxes, from school boards to Delaware County Council itself. Just this past Wednesday, Delaware County Council proposed a 23.8 percent property tax increase that would be used to pay for increased spending and grow the county’s financial deficit from $54 million to $76 million. Hundreds of residents attended the meeting, including myself, calling on the council not to raise taxes by such a high amount.
The county council says there hasn’t been a tax increase in 12 years, and they blame the previously all-Republican council’s not raising revenue for why there is a dramatic increase in taxes now. However, there is more to this story. The current Delaware County Council is spending far more than previous councils spent. The addition of a Health Department, the de-privatization of George H. Hill Correctional Facility, the purchasing of additional land, and increasing county staff salaries have all contributed to increased spending in the county.
The county’s taxes didn’t go up immediately when this increase in spending began, however. This is because the county council received $110,083,961 in ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds in 2022 and has plugged the holes of its growing deficit with these funds to hold off tax increases, until last year when it raised taxes by 5 percent. They are proposing to use the dwindling ARPA funds in the 2025 budget to pay for the health department again this year and are using additional rainy-day funds to fill gaps in the overall budget. Also, when the council obtains grants to purchase or enact various items or programs, it is using one-time or limited funding sources that eventually run out. This means that without the ARPA or grant funding, this proposed tax increase could be even higher than 23.8 percent.
When addressing the county council in last Wednesday’s meeting, I gave the council plenty of examples of ways they could, in fact, cut some of their spending to encourage them to lower their tax increase. Some of these examples included ending “free yoga” (nothing is free to taxpayers), shrinking their electric vehicle fleet, not spending $4.1 million in outside legal fees, and putting off some of their capital project spending, which is $120,926,840, up from $74,852,754, an increase of 61.6 percent.
Also, the Delaware County Council has undertaken a plan to buy up land for open space use and increase the number of trails it has across the county. I am an advocate for open space and green space in our communities. However, the annexation of land has put an increased burden on taxpayers and the county’s budget. In the past few years, the county has used eminent domain or settled litigation to acquire land in Media Borough for Glen Providence Park, in Marple Township for ‘Delco Woods,’ and more. This has amounted to millions more in taxpayer dollars being spent and requiring more for taxpayers to have to pay in the long run for the projects the council wants to do with these properties.
Whether you are a renter, business owner, or homeowner in Delaware County, we all should be concerned with the increased spending in Delaware County. Regardless of the justification, the council is irresponsibly creating a deeper deficit and has run out of options other than massive tax hikes to maintain their spending increases. This upcoming Wednesday, Dec. 11, the county council will convene to vote on this proposed budget.
Instead, Delaware County Council needs to make cuts in its budget to reduce the blow of this tax increase and prevent further increases in the future for struggling county residents.
Delaware County’s executive director on Tuesday unveiled a new proposed 2025 budget to the county council that includes a 23 percent tax increase, and will leave the county with an alarmingly small “rainy day fund.”
If passed, the tax impact on the average homeowner in the county, with a home assessed at approximately $250,000, would be $15.39 a month, or $184.69 a year. The impact would not just be limited to those who own single-family homes. HOA dues and rents for any kind of housing could very well see increases as landlords and property managers would have new costs that would need to be recouped.
Delaware County Executive Barbara O’Malley gives a budget presentation to the county council on Tuesday. Source: Delaware County online video
This time last year, the council proposed and later passed a five percent tax increase.
At least four of the five council members (all five being Democrats) signaled their likely support for the overall budget, including the tax increase: Chairwoman Dr. Monica Taylor, Kevin Madden, Elaine Paul Schaefer, and Christine A. Reuther.
Only Vice Chairman Richard Womack expressed reluctance, saying the county needed to form a “budget commission composed of a diverse group of community leaders, faith leaders, union leaders, business leaders and academics,” to study the budget and find proposed savings that might lower any tax increase.”
“I feel that working together, Delaware County can emerge from this crisis even stronger with a financial plan that benefits all residents for years to come,” Womack said. “So I say to you, and I ask council to hold off on increasing taxes, put the commission in place. Let’s see what we can do to help bring in resources where we can make different cuts and strategic cuts. And that’s what I would love to do.”
Although he has not officially announced, Womack is presumably running for re-election next year. Councilmember Kevin Madden will be term-limited out of office, so his seat will be open.
Executive Director Barbara O’Malley gave a 40-minute-plus presentation to the county council, and largely blamed the county’s structural deficit at the hands of inflation, as well as years in which the county experienced no tax increases at all.
O’Malley provided a visual showing inflation increasing 23.5 percent over a ten-year period.
“I’m certain all of our residents and ourselves have felt this acutely and personally we’ve seen that food costs increase at Fair Acres. For example: 38 percent in the last five years, 17 percent just last year. And at George W. Hill they’ve seen an eighteen percent increase in food costs in the last two years. Again, these facilities serve nearly over — combined — over 1,700 people and we have to take care of those individuals. So healthcare costs, food costs, energy costs, they impact the county just as they impact any other resident. Inflation impacts all of us and with inflation we have to adjust our costs and costs will increase.”
In 2022, Broad + Libertyinterviewed chairwoman Dr. Monica Taylor. When asked about inflation, Taylor said the council would be taking a wait-and-see approach.
“I think that’s something that we’ll probably have to assess, like, after the first quarter [of 2022]. We found that last year — you know, there’s inflation, if you think about gas costs, but then there’s also been the impact of Covid, where we’re not using as much gas, cause maybe we’re not all going out as much as we had been going out before,” Taylor said. “And so seeing how that balances out after the first quarter, I think, will be important to assess.”
Several council members and O’Malley said inflation was driving salary costs higher.
The county has been raising salaries for some time, and has frequently been chided by the county controller, JoAnne Phillips.
In March, just as Councilwoman Reuther was warning of a “sizable” tax increase, Phillips was sounding the alarm over personnel costs.
“I just wanted to make it clear that the costs that you’re considering today are just the salaries, not any other benefits, and the cost of our benefits that go into our budget,” Phillips said at the time, (video, minute 1:10).
“Two, I wanted to make note that there’s an impact on our pension ultimately, which hasn’t really been determined as we accelerate our salaries. If that’s the case, our salaries have really gone up in the last couple years. We’ve gone from about $167 million after Covid after the prison came online to looking at really, almost $188 million about two years later. So we are incrementally raising this a great deal,” she concluded.
Meanwhile, the fiscal crisis reinvigorated a years-long debate over the county council’s decision to reverse the planned sale of a public utility.
Officials from Aqua Pennsylvania, a private water and sewer company, said county officials should take the opportunity to sell the Delaware County Regional Water Quality Control Authority (DELCORA) to Acqua.
Acqua and Delcora agreed to a sale in which Aqua was supposed to purchase DELCORA for $276.5 million, but that sale has been tied up in legal battles since.
“This is an opportunity for us to get this transaction closed,” said Chris Franklin, chairman and CEO of Aqua. “The county would yield, I would say, at least $125 million because a lot more has been spent at DELCORA since 2019 when we signed the agreement of which — of course we would pay for — so that purchase price would go up. I know this is one-time money, if you think about it that way, but I think we should exhaust all forms of one-time money before we put a permanent long-term, forever tax increase on all the residents in the county.”
A resident of Radnor Township who spoke during public comment was highly critical of the proposed tax increase, and said the budget showed several categories of consistent growth that, he seemed to suggest, could have been reined in.
“A lot of the numbers that we’ve seen, maybe they’re decreasing, maybe they’re increasing a little. I want to provide somewhat of a longer framework for this. Since 2021, the expense for motor vehicles is up eight times. 30 percent [increase] for planning, seven times for park police and constable transport — seven times! 50 percent for public relations, four times for personnel in five years! Two times for the solicitor, about one and three quarters times for central purchasing, two times for general administration.” (Note: Readers should be advised that Broad + Liberty has not verified those calculations.)
Another county resident, Leah Kaufmann, suggested that the county would be foisting a second wave of inflation on residents with the tax increase.
“We the taxpayers are already hurting from inflation. The companies we work for are not paying us an appropriate [pay] increase per inflation,” Kaufmann said. “Some big companies can and won’t due to corporate greed, while other small businesses cannot without passing the increase onto our customers — thus creating a vicious cycle of price increases we the residents shouldn’t have to pay for our county mismanaging the budget. Respectfully, find the money elsewhere.”
The council also spent time discussing the use of the dwindling “fund balance,” which can essentially be thought of as the rainy day fund, or reserve fund.
In 2023, the county spent $37.8 million from the fund balance, and then another $10.7 million in 2024. For the upcoming year, the budget would draw another $12.9 from the fund balance.
O’Malley said this will leave the county with only $16 million left in that reserve. Compared to the overall county budget, the reserve fund would represent only five percent of the county’s annual operating budget.
That ratio is incredibly small when compared to neighboring counties. According to O’Malley, Bucks County keeps a reserve that is about thirteen percent of its annual spending, Chester County twelve percent. Montgomery County is most flush with a reserve that stands at 21 percent of its overall annual budget.
(Source: Slide from O’Malley budget presentation to county council on Tuesday)
“And you can see by comparison some of the levels in our peer counties, we really do want to achieve and get [the fund balance] to ten percent [of the overall budget]. And while I say ‘want,’ it really is a need. It’s appropriate and responsible to have a fund balance that could support any challenges or unexpected things that may happen.”
On the brighter side of the budget, O’Malley said the county nursing home, Fair Acres, should be budget neutral sometime in 2025.
“This means they will be self-sustaining. That is tremendous from where they were just a few years ago where they were relying on several million dollars from the general fund to operate,” O’Malley told the council. The majority of funding for Fair Acres comes from Medicare and Medicaid, she said.
She also seemed optimistic that some new technological purchases combined with new softwares could create long-term cost savings in the county’s purchasing process.
The proposed 23 percent tax increase is lower than a 28 percent increase previously reported by Broad + Liberty. To accommodate the difference, the county added more revenue from “transfers” and from one-time federal monies from the American Rescue Plan, passed in the pandemic.
County Democrats won two seats on the council starting in 2017, with Madden and Brian Zidek, who has since retired from the council. But in 2019, they added Taylor, Reuther, and Schaefer, giving their party full control of the county government for the first time since the Civil War.
Enabling those wins were ambitious promises to create a county health department and to deprivatize the county’s prison, which had been privately managed for not quite three decades.
On Tuesday, they spent significant energy defending those promises, which have since become real.
Both Reuther and Schaffer said the absence of a county-wide health department during the pandemic was an embarrassment.
Reuther said she would make the same decision to deprivatize the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, even though the county has struggled to contain its budget.
“While it’s proven to be expensive in a time of rising salaries, it was never about ‘We’re going to save money by privatizing the prison,’” she said.
Yet the deprivatization was marketed, at least in part, as a cost-saver to the county. As the county considered deprivatization, a consultant told the county’s Jail Oversight Board that the county could save money if it lowered the prison population. Even though the county has lowered the daily average population, the costs have soared well beyond what the county expected.
In 2022, the first year the county managed the prison, the total outlay was $47.3 million. That number stretched to $53.3 then $56.6 million in 2023 and 2024 respectively. According to the latest proposed budget, the prison will cost taxpayers $59.3 million next year.
Legal costs have also been on a steep rise. As Broad + Liberty has reported, the county’s spending on outside, third-party legal help has risen past $4.5 million. In the last year of Republican control, that figure was 10-times less, at about $400,000.
O’Malley said two major, costly cases were behind the county: that of the Crozer health system collapse, and the county’s acquisition of the “Delco Woods,” or, the property formerly known as Don Guanella.
Legal issues still await the council in regards to the prison. The county is facing a number of personnel and union-related lawsuits. Additionally, it faces significant legal challenges from two suicides that happened early in the government takeover, as well as a lawsuit related to the alleged murder of one inmate by another.
Although most of the council members didn’t say the word “Republicans” they frequently blamed years of no revenue increases — essentially a shot at previous Republican-majority councils.
“We have had a decade, more than a decade of disinvestment, in what government does to provide services and this board is in the position where we have to raise the revenue to invest and bring government to the level it needs to be to serve our public,” Schaeffer said.
Yet when the Democrats won complete control of the county, the winners said Republican one-party rule had led to higher taxes.
“The Democrats campaigned on a platform of transparency and change, vowing to bring an end to 150 years of one-party rule in the county, which they said led to mismanagement, sweetheart deals, higher taxes and fewer services than their suburban counterparts,” a report from WHYY noted in 2019.
Republicans said the blame was misplaced, and seemed eager for the next election cycle to get going.
“I must be living in the twilight zone. We’ve had an all Democrat council for four years. They are raising taxes 24 percent, and still pointing fingers at previous Republican administrations going back more than a decade while adding millions of dollars in dubious expenses,” Delaware County Republican Chairman Frank Agovino said. “I’m not sure if it is arrogance or incompetence, but what is clear is that this council no longer represents the working class in Delaware County. They are shining examples of the failures of the kind of one-party rule these people once railed against. Next year is now the most important local election in memory.”
The 2025 budget is on the agenda for a meeting on Wednesday, 6 p.m. to hear more public comment. The council will vote on the budget on Wednesday, Dec. 11.
Update: The original version of this article incorrectly stated that the county used $27.3 million from the fund balance, when the actual number was $37.8 million. The article has been updated to reflect this information.
The first draft of Delaware County’s 2025 budget shows the county operating with a $76 million deficit, according to a Broad + Liberty analysis of county budget documents.
In order to pay for $52 million of that gap, taxpayers are facing a 28 percent real estate tax increase. To fill the remainder, the draft budget spends $10 million in non-renewable funding from the federal government, and also dips into the county’s “fund balance” — essentially the reserve fund — for another $14 million.
The five-member county council, which flipped from a Republican to Democratic majority in 2020, will have the final say on any adjustments or changes to what Executive Director Barbara O’Malley has proposed. Yet the executive director’s draft budget is usually a reasonable predictor of the basic outline of the county’s anticipated spending and revenues.
The proposed 28 percent tax increase would come on the heels of a five percent increase already levied on county residents in 2024.
Warning signs that a subsequent tax increase larger than last year’s have been flashing for some time.
As far back as March, Councilwoman Christine Reuther said in a public meeting that the county was facing a “sizable tax increase” for 2025, but stopped short of giving any estimate.
In June, the credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded Delaware County’s rating, a decision that may have been based at least in part on Reuther’s comments in March.
“As Moody’s Ratings has downgraded Delaware County’s ratings because of the ‘unexpected weakening of the county’s financial position,’ at least one county council member is anticipating a tax increase at the end of the year to balance increasing costs,” the Delco Timesreported.
“The downgrade captures the unexpected weakening of the county’s financial position,” Moody’s said when downgrading the rating from Aa1 to Aa2. “The county’s available fund balance is already an outlier to the downside relative to peers, and it expects to run a large deficit in 2024 with the exhaustion of federal stimulus aid.”
The “fund balance” referenced can essentially be thought of as the county’s reserves, or rainy day fund. According to Executive Director O’Malley’s budget, the county would use $14 million from the fund balance in the 2025 budget.
The other spending item lacking a continual revenue stream is $10 million in spending from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a bill passed in the midst of the pandemic intended to help local governments across the country deal with the turbulence. According to a webpage on the Government Finance Officers Association, ARPA funding “must be obligated by the end of calendar year 2024 and expended by the end of calendar year 2026.”
In other words, the county will not have the ability to dedicate any ARPA funds after this year. This is the same “federal stimulus aid” that Moody’s worried would be a problem for the county once the aid was “exhausted.”
Given that the $14 million from the fund balance and $10 million from ARPA are included in this year’s “operating budget” but are non-recurring sources of revenue, the county would still need to find revenue streams to cover those obligations by the 2026 budget or risk another sizable tax increase. Covering that $24 million in 2026 would equate to roughly an additional 13 percent tax increase, according to a Broad + Liberty analysis.
That worry about reliance on non-recurring revenues was previously detailed by an unidentified county employee who took notes on a county leadership meeting led by O’Malley from February.
“Our county has been in the habit of using one-time funds for ongoing operating costs,” the employee wrote in the four-page memo outlining the meeting. The memo was obtained through a previous Right to Know Law request.
The county charter requires the executive director to submit a budget to council sixty days before the end of the year. Despite the fact that the county has had this draft of the budget since the beginning of November, it hasn’t made the document available online. Broad + Liberty made photos of the executive summary of the budget while in person at the county’s open records office, but was unable to obtain a full copy of the document on Friday. It expects to have a full copy of the document Monday.
Councilman Kevin Madden was one of the first Democrats elected to the Delaware County Council in nearly a century and a half in 2017. One of his first suggestions was to have all county meetings recorded and related documents uploaded to the county website for posterity. “It’s not so much those measures will change things overnight, but they’re emblematic of a system that didn’t employ common sense best practices,” Madden said. “We ran on the idea that single-party rule prevents transparency and this is a time to make structural changes.” Madden also pledged not to raise taxes.
The county responded to issues related to the tax increase, the dwindling fund balance, and posting the draft budget, but did not answer other questions.
“Like many counties across Pennsylvania, we are faced with difficult decisions as the combination of inflation, utilization of one-time federal relief funding, increased demand for services, and flat revenue for more than the past decade has resulted in a structural deficit and dwindling fund balance,” a county spokesperson told Broad + Liberty. “We looked at every possible way to streamline operations and cut costs before asking the public for more support and we do not do so lightly. This County, like many others, incorporated the ARPA Revenue Loss funds into our budget during the past few years to avoid relying on tax increases from residents. Last year, Council made a small increase to revenue to reduce our reliance on one-time funds and minimize reduction of our general fund reserves.
“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. We are continuing to work to reduce any increase from our proposed budget that will be presented at our budget hearing.
“We are committed to putting the County on the path to be self-sustaining and begin restoring our fund balance. We will continue the work of providing the level of service that our residents deserve while keeping costs as low as possible. The County will share details on its budget at both the public hearing and the budget ordinance meeting; both meetings will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing,” the spokesman concluded.
The county also provided a budget slideshow, pointing specifically to one slide showing that Delaware County’s revenue has remained relatively flat in comparison to its suburban neighbors like Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery counties.
Combining both the 2024 and 2025 budgets, the county will have spent $51.8 million from the fund balance. The county did not respond to a question as to what the fund balance was expected to be at the beginning of the new fiscal year on January 1.
The Democrats, who came to power in 2020 and many of whom still remain on the all-Democratic county council today, campaigned on promises to launch ambitious projects like the creation of a county-run health department and the deprivatization of the county prison.
Republicans warned some of those projects would be more costly than Democrats imagined — predictions that seem to be coming true.
For example, as the county was progressing towards deprivatizing the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, it received a financial analysis from a consultant discussing various cost scenarios. In the most expensive analysis presented, the county was expected to spend about $49.9 million to run the prison, but that assumed a full population. The county could reasonably run the prison for about $43 million if the daily population were significantly lowered, the consultant estimated.
According to the 2024 adopted budget, the net cost of running the GWHCF was $56 million. Additionally, that higher price tag came despite the fact that the county has successfully lowered the daily prison population by at least 20 percent over the last two years.
Other decisions by the county have put upward pressure on the budget.
For example, as Broad + Liberty has chronicled for years now, the county’s use of third-party attorneys as opposed to in-house counsel has skyrocketed under the Democrats’ control. In the last year of Republican governance, spending on outside attorneys was about $400,000. In 2023, that figure had shot up to $4.5 million.
When confronted last week about budget issues, Councilwoman Elaine Paul Schaefer largely blamed inflation, and her Republican predecessors.
“That budget deficit doesn’t come from nowhere,” Schaeffer said, as reported by the Delco Times. “The leadership of this county before this current board did not raise taxes for twelve straight years and then, the thirteenth year before this council came in, they lowered taxes and decreased revenue coming in.
“So, it is no great mystery where the budget deficit came from,” Schaeffer continued. “There’s not a business in the entire world whether it’s profit, nonprofit, or government that can operate for over a decade with no increase in revenue commensurate with inflation. It just doesn’t work.”
Delaware County GOP Chairman Frank Agovino sees things differently.
“I am pleased that council Democrats have finally come clean and admitted what most of us have known for years. Out of control spending by the Biden-Harris Administration in DC and this council have resulted in crushing inflation and massive tax increases at a time when most Delco families can least afford it,” Agovino said.
“No one likes big tax increases, and very few people like one-party rule. Unfortunately, we have both right now in Delco. It’s time for county Democrats to be held accountable for their incompetence. Passing the buck to a Republican Party of yesteryear is pathetic and I’m confident voters will see right through their excuses in next year’s local elections,” he concluded.
It is not clear when the budget will be made available online for public inspection. If the standard for “public inspection” includes publishing on the county’s website, as was suggested previously by many current members of the council, then the Nov. 1 deadline established by the county’s Home Rule Charter was not met.
The county will discuss the budget at a 1 p.m. meeting on Dec. 3, and is expected to vote on a final version at the planned, regular council meeting on Dec. 11.
Reworld™ is hosting a free electronics recycling collection event as a fundraiser for STEM Academy at Showalter. Reworld™ will make a $15,000 donation to the high school in Chester, plus an additional $5,000 if 15,000 pounds of e-waste are collected.
Only 400 registrants will be accepted and registration is required in advance: online or by phone (610-353-1555 x3).
The event will be held on Wednesday, November 13 from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. EST at Upland County Park,280 6th Street, Upland, Pennsylvania.
Residents in Delaware County face challenges in responsibly recycling electronics, especially items like televisions that often come with additional recycling fees. Reworld™, which owns and operates a sustainable waste solutions facility in Chester and an electronics waste processing facility in Philadelphia, is committed to being a good neighbor to the communities it serves. The collection event will not only provide the greater Chester community with a free method for recycling e-waste, but also serve as a fundraiser for the nearby STEM Academy.
Items accepted:
· Televisions
· Computer monitors
· Printers
· CPU towers, laptops, mice and keyboards
· Desktop copiers and scanners
· Tablets
· Routers and modems
· Home and cell phones
· Cable boxes and electronic cables
· DVD players, VCRs, stereos and video game consoles
· Vacuum cleaners
* Please place all items in your car trunk or truck bed.
Reworld is hosting the event in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Resources Council (PRC). PRC follows all federal/state/local health and safety guidelines. Limited spots are available – register now!
After a hearing on Friday, Delaware County Common Pleas Judge John J. Whelan dismissed a lawsuit over voting machines brought by a Republican congressional candidate and others.
Alfeia Goodwin is challenging three-term Democratic incumbent Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon.
“The judge’s decision was anticipated, and we’re appealing,” Goodwin told DVJournal.
The suit claimed the 18 Hart Verity voting machines in question should be quarantined and the FBI should be called in to investigate who installed the rogue software, the lawsuit says. Also, the county’s other 838 machines should be tested to see if they have the same issues.
Goodwin’s co-plaintiff, Robert Mancini, a computer cyber-security expert, said MathNET Numerics Dll, a program not authorized by state or federal elections officials, was found on the machines. He warned the county council about the MathNET program at its April 17 meeting before the state primary. The county took no action to remove it, he said.
The county welcomed the court’s decision, according to a press release.
“The court’s ruling, issued after a thorough five-hour hearing, confirmed that the Bureau of Elections and Voting Machine Warehouse had fully complied with regulations and conducted additional testing that exceeded state requirements,” county officials said.
At the close of the hearing, Whelan said the county’s performance of testing beyond what the state requires weighed in the ruling. He stated the evidence suggests Delaware County voters should feel confident in their election systems.
“This decision confirms what we have said all along: our voting equipment is secure, reliable, and compliant with both federal and state standards,” said Delaware County Elections Director Jim Allen. “The thoroughness of our Logic and Accuracy testing demonstrates our commitment to fair elections. We encourage voters to participate in the upcoming election with full confidence that every vote will be counted accurately and transparently.”
He called the claims made in the lawsuit “baseless.”
“The county’s Logic and Accuracy testing—a vital component of election preparation—ensures that all voting machines function correctly and match the certified software. In addition to pre-election testing, the county conducts a test to verify that the software in use perfectly matches the software that was certified by the federal government. The election offices also perform post-election audits and recounts, including hand recounts, to further verify the accuracy and reliability of election results.
The lawsuit sought emergency relief, claiming improper software had been installed on the county’s voting machines. However, the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence of these claims, county officials said.
Mancini said, “Judge Whelan does not understand that software not verified by the EAC is not allowed on Electronic Voting Systems. Defendant Delaware County successfully conflated the difference between loading software and validating that the software matches the original build that was tested in an accredited lab by the Election Assistance Commission.
“The judge ruled that non-technical people can make a technical decision,” he added. “Not a single witness knew what the output a ‘trusted build validation’ or what a hash code is ! The judge allowed software that has not been tested, verified and validated on the scanner, a software package that is designed specifically to manipulate date because it was too much work to count the ballot by hand.”
Delaware County election board member John McBlain has resigned, accusing the panel of rushing to add three “voter service centers” in deeply Democratic parts of the suburban Philadelphia county, something he said adds a blatant element of unfairness to the county’s election process.
McBlain, the lone Republican on Delaware County’s election board, has been the minority party appointee on the three-member election board since 2021. All members of the election board are appointed by the county council, which has been majority-Democratic since early 2020. A provision in the county’s charter ensures a check on the majority party, however, requiring that at least one member of the election board be a representative of the minority party.
At a special meeting of the election board on Friday, McBlain announced his intention to quit effective at the end of November, saying his decision was due to the board’s approval of three voter service centers in Upper Darby, Chester, and Chester Heights — all three Democratic strongholds.
“I thought I could serve on this board as long as I believed that we were making sure the elections were both secure and fair,” McBlain began at the end of the meeting on Friday, October 11. “I think the board has put their finger on the scale, so I don’t think that that fairness aspect is there anymore. Therefore, I — as much as I’m tempted to do it, as of effective immediately — I tender my resignation as of November 30th, 2024, so that I’ll complete my duties during the election certification process. But then I hereby resign from the board after that date.”
Voter service centers (VSCs) are essentially no different than “satellite election offices” which were controversial as far back as the 2020 general election. Whichever name is used, the creation is meant to be a literal extension of the county’s primary election office — the one place where a voter could register to vote, request a mail-in ballot, and return that ballot, all at the same time and same place. Philadelphia’s satellite election offices drew the ire of Republicans that year because Philadelphia refused to allow poll watchers anywhere inside, arguing that the locations were county election offices, so they could not be polling places. A Commonwealth Court ruling later upheld that argument to exclude poll watchers.
Like Philadelphia, Delaware County also used satellite election offices in 2020, the rationale largely being the pandemic. But according to McBlain, since 2020 “the only voter service center that we’ve maintained has been [the original and main election office] at the Media courthouse, and we’ve done that for each election, and that has been adequate.”
Now, McBlain says, the three VSCs seem to be created spur of the moment, and they’re in some of the deepest blue parts of the county.
“I don’t understand what has changed. We are down — I want to say by more than a third, if not two thirds — the number of applications for mail-in votes as we were in 2020,” McBlain said.
“There’s no more pandemic where we need to sort of spread things out. There’s not a need for it. The Media [county seat] office is more than adequately handling all requests for registration for applications to handle receipt of mail-in or absentee ballots,” McBlain told Broad + Liberty after his resignation. “No one has been calling publicly for [VSCs]. I don’t recall one member of the public attending a previous meeting this year [prior to Oct. 11] and advocating that we ought to have voter service centers for better service to the residents.”
In the September 24 meeting of the election board, county election director Jim Allen distinctly raised the possibility of adding VSCs, and listed only the sites of Upper Darby, Chester, and Chester Heights as possibilities.
But it’s what happened next that troubled McBlain the most.
McBlain says just after that meeting, he was talking to Allen. Then Donna Cantor, who McBlain says is a lawyer for the county Democratic party, approached them both.
“She [Cantor] came up to Mr. Allen and said to him that Colleen Guiney, the chairwoman of the [county] Democratic Party, had the list of volunteers to staff the voter services center ready. And I expressed shock,” McBlain said.
“I said, ‘I didn’t realize that we had decided that we were going to have voter services centers.’ And to Jim Allen’s credit, I mean, he immediately said ‘Well, listen at any voter services centers, we’re not going to have partisan volunteers staffing.’ But the Democratic Party was already prepared to staff these voter services centers at the September meeting where again, it was discussed almost in passing,” McBlain explained.
Election Director Allen did not directly refute that a conversation with Cantor happened, but he did offer his own context.
“[S]omeone approached me about the possible use of volunteers, in front of Mr. McBlain, and I turned away the suggestion. There were no specifics or a ‘list,’” he said.
Cantor did not respond to a request for comment asking if she disputed McBlain’s version of the conversation.
Guiney responded to a request for comment, but did not answer specific questions about whether the county Democrats were somehow prepared to staff VSCs before the VSCs were even discussed publicly and approved. Guiney mostly filibustered.
“It is a matter of public record that voter services centers are located in areas convenient to public transit, and in facilities already wired into the secure Delaware County communications system,” Guiney said. “We have had Voter Service Centers in previous elections, and surrounding counties have already opened Voter Service Centers this cycle. This matter has already been discussed on the publicly streamed Board of Elections leading up to the most recent meeting.
“The Democratic party has robust volunteer engagement, but the County is not using volunteers in the Voter Service Centers. Any Delaware County resident, of any political party is welcome to apply for a temporary position with the Board of Elections by contacting the Bureau of Elections for more information,” Guiney concluded.
For the public comment portion of the Oct. 11 special meeting, 21 total people rose to address the election board. A Broad + Liberty analysis showed five of them spoke about regular polling locations, one spoke about poll worker safety, thirteen spoke in favor of adding VSCs, and two expressed concerns about VSCs.
“So at the time of the [Oct. 11] meeting, it was clear that there was a partisan [effort] to pack the room in favor of this. There were dozens of Democratic committee people or volunteers,” McBlain said. “There were a dozen or more members of the League of Women voters who were nothing more than the provisional wing of the Delaware County Democratic Party who were present to speak in favor of it.”
A request for comment to the two other members of the election board, sent to them via the county’s spokesperson, was not returned.
Democratic State Representative and chair of the Upper Darby Democratic committee Heather Boyd was among the thirteen who spoke in favor of the measure. Others included a county Democratic committee member, someone that ran for delegate to the Democratic National Convention last May, as well as a donor to a local Democratic candidate, and the founder of a progressive group in Delco. Two persons from the League of Women Voters also spoke.
One Drexel Hill resident questioned the rationale of the satellite site locations. “I’m also concerned about the equity of these polling places, these satellite polling places. Where is the equity for the communities that have heavy Republican presence? Where is their pop-up satellite location [in] communities such as Parkside, Trainer, and Upland — communities that are also considered perhaps low income communities, where is their pop-up voting site?”
McBlain also said VSCs came up very briefly but somewhat unseriously months ago, he suggested the county survey all municipalities to see which ones might be interested, but that the county never acted on that suggestion.
To anyone thinking McBlain has a hair trigger for an election conspiracy need only listen to his Democrat counterparts to understand that’s not the case.
“I think you served the board with great distinction,” Election Board Chairwoman Ashley Lunkenheimer said upon hearing McBlain’s intention to resign. “I think there’s very few in the county or in the commonwealth who have a better knowledge of election law and I think that your viewpoint has always been well served on this board, but I appreciate that you’re continuing your duties than through the election because we need — you have a really good perspective on elections.”
“John McBlain is someone who I’m gonna disagree with on a great many policy issues, but we both have the same factual understanding of how elections are conducted,” Democratic Councilwoman Christine Reuther told the Inquirer in November, when Reuther was about to renominate him to the election board. “He doesn’t see conspiracy theories every time you turn around.”
Reuther’s November comments to the Inquirer came just as a long-simmering partisan power struggle over the election board was about to come to a close. Earlier in the year, the county council passed an ordinance that would allow it to reject the minority party’s nomination for the election board. The resolution went further, saying that the county had the “unfettered discretion” to reject as many candidates from the minority party as it liked until it found a suitable candidate.
Council Democrats passed the ordinance in January of 2023. Republicans quickly denounced the move as a power grab. When Republicans sued in June, a spokesperson for the council accused Delco Republicans of playing politics.
“Interestingly, the Delco GOP public statements on this case suggests [sic] a ‘blatant power grab,’” the county said in a statement to the Delco Daily Times. “However, the change in law which is being challenged was passed on January 17, 2023. Now, more than five months later, has the lawsuit [sic] been filed. It appears less an effort to secure a fair election, and more a weak effort to develop a talking point for an upcoming county election.”
However, a judge ruled in December the ordinance was illegal and struck it down.
“The Ordinance was an arrogant attempt by County Council to create a veto power for themselves to block the right of the Delaware County Republican Party Chairman to nominate his preferred member to the Delaware County Board of Elections,” said Wally Zimolong, one of the attorneys who fought the suit on behalf of the county GOP.
Reuther, the member of council who oversees the county’s elections, has also danced on the partisan tightrope in a presidential election before.
In 2020, Reuther was clearly the lead on the county’s pursuit of and eventual acceptance of election grants from the Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL. Those grants would later be famous for receiving a $350 million infusion from Mark Zuckerberg
As Delaware County got nearer to accepting the grant, the county solicitor flagged to Reuther some of the left-leaning tendencies of the granting agency.
“Not at all surprising,” Reuther said in response. “I am seeking funds to fairly and safely administer the election so everyone legally registered to vote can do so and have their votes count. If a left leaning public charity wants to further my objective, I am good with it. I will deal with the blow back.”
The Pennsylvania General Assembly later banned local election offices from accepting grants from outside, private agencies, in part because of the concerns that the grants resulted in improper and unbalanced political influence.
McBlain was not a part of the election board at that time.
But this time, he says it’s not election security he’s worried about.
“I think this is the Delaware County Democratic Party putting their hand on the scale with these voter services centers to literally get out the vote in highly partisan areas of the county without any consideration of [if] there’s a reason that they didn’t come in and offer it in Marple or Springfield. So I just wasn’t going to be part of it anymore. I’m disgusted with this partisanship showing its head at the 11th hour.”
