New Castle County school districts all prepare tax rate resets

Why Should Delaware Care?
New Castle County homeowners can expect smaller tax bills this year if their school board approves a new split rate structure for residential and commercial properties. Following public outcry, state lawmakers approved legislation in a special session last week allowing northern school districts to offer that relief.

A week after state lawmakers allowed the public school districts in New Castle County to split their property tax rates to provide additional relief to homeowners, each has announced plans to do so.

How much relief is to come, however, remains unclear for some districts.

The school boards for the Appoquinimink, Brandywine, Christina, Colonial, Red Clay Consolidated and New Castle County Vocational Technical school districts are scheduled to meet over the next week to vote on new rates that would lower tax burdens for homeowners and raise them for commercial properties.

The Smyrna School District, which has some New Castle County properties, is not eligible to adjust its rates under the bill approved by lawmakers, who specified that a district must be located “entirely in New Castle County.”

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Districts have until early next week to approve new rates under House Bill 242, otherwise they forfeit the ability to provide relief to homeowners.

If approved, the New Castle County government aims to mail out recalculated tax bills by Sept. 30, and property owners would have until Nov. 30 to pay the revised bills. 

If you’ve already paid your annual bill, and the revised bill is more than $50 cheaper, you can request a refund or allow the overpayment to be applied as a credit to next year’s bills. Sums under $50 will be applied as a credit.

What does Christina propose to do?

Christina aims to split its rates, with both residential homes and farms under one rate and apartments, commercial, industrial, and utilities under another. That also mirrors the approach taken by the New Castle County government.

Homeowners would see a tax rate reduction from 79.97 cents to 61.50 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value. The non-residential rate would rise to $1.2102 per hundred – a 96% difference from the residential rate.

Unlike Brandywine and Red Clay, Christina is proposing to retain the 10% revenue increase that its school board approved earlier this summer under the reassessment.

The proposal needs to be approved by the Christina Board of Education on tonight in order to be put into effect.

What does Brandywine propose to do?

Update: The Brandywine School District Board of Education approved the following proposal at its Aug. 18 meeting.

Brandywine proposes a two-pronged benefit to district homeowners.

First, it would remove the 1.7% rate increase that it approved in July in an attempt to safeguard against program cuts by the federal government. Since that vote, the Trump administration agreed to release billions in withheld state education funding for teacher resources and support for low-income students and English language learners, including more than $1.2 million for Brandywine.

The district would also split its rates, with both residential homes and farms under one rate and apartments, commercial, industrial, and utilities under another rate. That mirrors the approach taken by the New Castle County government.

Ultimately, homeowners would see a tax rate reduction from 66.61 cents to 56.09 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value, while the non-residential rate would rise to $1.0382 per hundred – an 85% difference in the new rates.

That equates to roughly 32,549 properties seeing tax bill reductions while 1,328 would see increases, and residential properties once again making up 67% of the total tax burden.

“Relief will limit, but not erase, the additional tax burden from the reassessment,” the district warns, meaning many homeowners can still expect increases over last year, albeit smaller sums than notified last month.

What does Colonial propose to do?

Update: The Colonial School District Board of Education approved the following proposal at its Aug. 19 meeting.

Colonial also aims to split its rates, with both residential homes and farms under one rate and apartments, commercial, industrial, and utilities under another. That also mirrors the approach taken by the New Castle County government.

Homeowners would see a tax rate reduction from 55.17 cents to 45.23 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value. The non-residential rate would rise to 74.294 cents per hundred – a 64% difference from the residential rate.

The rates reset residential properties to once again make up about 53% of the total tax burden.

The average Colonial district home – worth about $336,000 – would see a reduction of more than $300 under the new split rate structure, reducing the year-over-year tax increase from 42% to 16%.

Unlike Brandywine, Colonial is proposing to retain the 7% revenue increase that its school board approved earlier this summer under the reassessment. That contributes about 2.9 cents to the residential tax rate.

What does Red Clay propose to do?

Update: The Red Clay School District Board of Education approved the following proposal at its Aug. 20 meeting.

Red Clay proposes a two-pronged benefit to district homeowners.

First, it would remove the 1% rate increase that it approved in July.

The district would also split its rates, with both residential homes and farms under one rate and apartments, commercial, industrial, and utilities under another rate. That mirrors the approach taken by the New Castle County government.

Ultimately, homeowners would see a tax rate reduction from 67.19 cents to 59.18 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value, while the non-residential rate would rise to 99.237 per hundred – a 67% difference in the new rates.

That equates to roughly 52,500 properties seeing tax bill reductions while 3,250 would see increases.