Delaware County 2025 Budget
The Delaware County 2025 fiscal year budget that was passed by the County Commissioners by a 4-1 vote, totaled $898 million. The total budget is comprised of four budgets: Operating, Capital, Fair Acres (the county nursing home), and Fiscal (all human services).
Although the Total Budget increase is nominal at 1.2% over 2024, we see large increases in many expense categories which are offset by the elimination of the Early Learning Center in the Fiscal Budget.
Tax revenue only accounts for 25% of the Total Budget, and that’s after the 28% tax increase that we discussed in our 12/20/24 email, seen here.
Sloppy or … ?
While digging into the details of the budget, we found missing words, incomplete numbers, decimal points where commas should have been, and that was just the start! While some categories were clearly itemized with numbers tying to totals, other categories were not even included. As such, analysis will take some time. Here are a few things we’ve seen so far:
Employee Benefits
County employee benefits can be seen in the Operating Budget and in the Fair Acres Budget. As seen in the chart below, the cost of employee benefits in the Operating Budget skyrocketed in 2025 by 55% to over $49 million. Interestingly, the Fair Acres employee benefits cost only increased by 4%, from $11.1 to $11.6 million. Are the employees working at the county nursing home getting subpar benefits or is something else going on?
Federal and State Grants
Almost half of the county’s anticipated revenue, 47%, is derived from federal and state grants. The Fiscal Budget, which represents Health and Human services for juveniles, the aging, workforce development, and library services among other things, is the largest recipient of state and federal funding totaling over $344 million. That’s 90% of the Fiscal Budget! The recently installed Health Department is entirely funded with federal or state money.
As we discussed in the Chester County 2025 Budget update, we do not know the repercussions on counties as federal D.O.G.E. efforts to curb waste, fraud, and abuse in Washington, D.C. continue. Is it prudent for Delaware County to be so dependent on the state and federal government for such a large percentage of the budget?
George W. Hill Correctional Facility
Until 2022 the Delaware County Prison was professionally managed by a contracted management company. After 25 years of that private-public relationship, the County Council decided that the county would operate the facility itself. Since then, prisoners have died in custody, been freed by accident, and been denied medical services. The list of mismanagement and incompetence goes on and on. The monetary result to the Delaware County taxpayers? $10 million in additional costs. It now costs $59 million to run the George W. Hill Correctional Facility.
Bottom line…
The 28% Delaware County tax increase was the largest in Southeastern PA. Why was this necessary? The County Council chooses to continue to borrow and spend. The only meaningful decrease in spending came from the elimination of a federally or state funded Early Learning Center. With the reliance on federal and state grants to fund so many services, the county may turn to the taxpayers once again if those grants are withheld. Why? Government officials seem allergic to spending less of your tax dollars. Are these elected leaders managing the county purse the way you would expect? If they can’t even put together a clean and transparent budget, then can they be trusted to be detail-oriented and use good judgement with any aspect of the county government? You decide!
If you have questions about items you see in the budget, please let us know! We will investigate, get those answers, and report back to you.
As the Constitutional Convention ended in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked if the delegates produced a monarchy or a republic. Franklin replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.”
We are trying to keep this republic that we love and hold our representatives accountable to the people. Join us in that mission and share this Update with your contacts!
