Georgetown, Del., May 23, 2006: Sussex County leaders today presented their financial vision for the coming 2006-07 budget year, unveiling a $140 million spending plan that would keep property taxes at their same rate, but use added revenue from realty transfer and other sources to increase funding for public safety, libraries and new facilities.

County Administrator Robert L. Stickels, along with Finance Director David B. Baker and Accounting Division Director Susan M. Webb, made their presentation of the proposed budget to the Sussex County Council during the council’s weekly meeting. The budget, titled “The Next Generation” as it is Mr. Stickels’ last budget before his Oct. 31 retirement, is approximately $3 million more, or 2.1 percent, over the current year’s $137 million budget.

County Council will hold a public hearing on the budget during its 10 a.m. meeting June 20, 2006, in council chambers at the County Administrative Offices building on The Circle in Georgetown. Council must adopt a budget before the start of the new fiscal year July 1.

Mr. Stickels, Mr. Baker and Ms. Webb noted that the proposed budget keeps in place the county’s property tax rate of 44.5 cents per $100 of assessed value, making this proposal the 16 budget in which the rate has remained the same. th

However, substantial increases in fuel and electricity prices over the last year have forced the county to re-examine the rates it charges sewer users, for instance. Users in most of the county’s 15 sewer districts will see rate increases, ranging anywhere from 1 percent to 9 percent, to help cover the costs of increased power and fuel prices. Sussex County’s four sewage treatment plants are the largest consumers of electricity in the county’s budget.

“Of the 19 budgets that I have been involved with, this has been the most complex to deal with,” Mr. Stickels said. “With the concerns of rising energy costs, the continued growth in the demand for our services, and planning now for the possible retirement of a substantial number of senior staff, all of those factors made this an extremely difficult budget to put together.”

Mr. Stickels, however, said he thought the plan that he, Mr. Baker and Ms. Webb assembled was a pragmatic and prudent budget for the coming year.

The proposed budget would include, among other things:

• $21 million, up 20 percent from the current year’s budget, for public safety. That money would go toward paying the salaries of paid ambulance attendants in local volunteer fire companies, funding the county’s 100-person-plus paramedic service, and continuing a $500,000 local law enforcement grant program;
• $7.5 million to construct a 40,000-square-foot, $15 million Administration Annex building, to be built in downtown Georgetown. The new building – its cost would be spread over three years -- would house the county’s growing Engineering Department, as well as a record retention center for important public documents. Satellite parking lots also would be built near the building;
• $1.5 million to continue open space acquisition, in partnership with the non-profit Sussex County Land Trust and the Delaware Department of Agriculture. More than 2,000 acres have been preserved in Sussex County in recent years through those partnerships.

Mr. Baker said in addition to the $140 million proposed budget, county staff has also looked at a five-year capital projects plan totaling $247 million. Money for those projects, which comes through operating budgets and bond sales, would fund other capital improvements such as the creation of new sewer districts, the expansion of the South Coastal and Greenwood libraries, runway lengthening at the Sussex County Airport, and the ongoing construction of a new county 911 center.

“The capital improvement plan continues the practice of pay-as-you-grow financing, which simply means that we’re not borrowing all that money for non-sewer and water projects,” Mr. Baker said. “We’re continuing our policy of setting aside money, as it becomes available, through each year’s budget to pay for the needed improvements demanded by a growing county.”

Ms. Webb noted that a continued robust economy locally has not only given the county some of the funding that it needs now to make future capital improvements, but will also allow the county government this year to grant county employees a 3.5 percent cost of living increase, as well as a one-time $500 energy assistance increase.

“The demands on putting together a budget come from all corners, from making sure our employees’ needs are met to ensuring that the county’s needs, and the taxpayers’ needs, are met as well,” Ms. Webb said. “It’s a lot to manage and to think about. I know we’ve done that.”

A copy of the proposed Fiscal Year 2007 budget, as well as the accompanying budget letter, can be viewed or downloaded from the county’s web site, at sussexcountyde.gov.