Why Should Delaware Care?
Pressures from overcrowding and inflation are continuing to burden Delaware schools. And most recently, it was officials from the Delmar School District who said they will need pass a referendum in order to deal with it. Still, such requests from neighboring districts, like Indian River, have failed in recent years.
The Delmar School District will likely ask voters to approve a school tax increase this coming year, as the small district serves the town that is split by the Delaware and Maryland border grapples with school overcrowding and inflation.
The Delmar Board of Education has not yet held a formal vote to hold a referendum, so it is unclear how much more money district leaders may ask residents to pay. But, during a special board of education meeting Wednesday called to discuss a need for a referendum, Superintendent Andrew O’Neal outlined what is at stake should residents fail to pass one.
“We may have to reduce staff, programs; postpone essential repairs and accept our students will not have access to safe, modern learning environments that they deserve,” O’Neal said.
He pointed toward overcrowding, teacher and staff salary increases, and inflation-induced cost increases as reasons for needing to increase taxes.
If passed, the tax increase would only apply toward Delawareans, and the funds raised would only be applied to the district’s middle and high schools, O’Neal said in a written statement to Spotlight Delaware.
Although the middle and elementary schools are only 2 miles apart, Delmar Elementary School is located in Delmar, Md., and is part of the Wicomico County (Md.) Public School District.
Students living across the state line can also attend Delaware’s Delmar School District for middle and high school, but only Delawareans are eligible to vote in a district referendum, O’Neal said.
Despite both the middle and high school being located in Delaware, O’Neal said the financial burden of an education is still fairly distributed between residents of both states. The number of Delaware residents attending the elementary school is “pretty close” to the number of Maryland residents attending the middle and high school, he said.
So while Delawareans technically subsidize the cost of Maryland students to attend Delmar Middle and High School, the same is true of Maryland residents subsidizing Delaware children to attend Delmar Elementary.
First referendum in a decade?
The last time the Delmar School District held and passed a referendum was in 2015, when the district raised money for both capital improvements to school facilities and for operating expenses.
During Wednesday’s meeting, the district’s Chief Operating Officer Monet Smith said she does not think it is feasibly “on the table anymore” for the community to go 10 years without holding a vote to raise dollars for school.
Still, Smith acknowledged a challenge of holding a referendum this year with residents already grappling with tax increases resulting from Delaware’s recent property reassessment.
“We’re not in a position where we can simply just ask for what we need, because any increase will cost Delmar taxpayers more out-of-pocket money,” she said.
Last year, both the Indian River and Smyrna school districts asked voters to raise funds for similar needs. And both of those requests were ultimately rejected by voters.
At that time, some Indian River residents said they did not believe their district’s referendum would pass because of ongoing concerns about the impact of the statewide property reassessment.