Restaurateurs raise heat over increased restrictions

From Delaware Business Times

WILMINGTON — As Gov. John Carney rolled back indoor dining back to Phase 1 requirements of 30% of indoor capacity to slow the spread of COVID-19, Delaware’s restaurant industry faces difficult decisions this winter amid an estimated $900 million loss through the pandemic.

“Look, it means that full-service restaurants that rely on that in-person dining experience will be hit hard,” Xavier Teixido, owner of Harry’s Hospitality Group, told the Delaware Business Times. “You cannot make money at 30% capacity. The No. 1 decision restaurants are going to face is the value in staying open with staff there to serve 30% of the guests that were allowed versus the hit in closing restaurants.”

Gianmarco Martuscelli, owner of Klondike Kate’s in Newark and La Casa Pasta in Glasgow, said the industry was “disappointed” by the renewed restrictions. Martuscelli, who serves as treasurer for the Delaware Restaurant Association board, said that owners had hoped for a curfew, like Maryland has instituted, rather than reduced capacity because it would allow them to retain more of their dinner business. Now, however, some owners are deciding whether to scrap indoor dining altogether and return to curbside takeout only, he said.

Since June, Delaware has been operating in Phase 2, allowing 60% capacity of fire code capacity in restaurants although bar seating was restricted in many Sussex County beach communities in the height of summer. Carney eased those restrictions on beach bars in September — allowing patrons in if they reserved a seat and ordered food — and lifted them entirely this month ahead of winter.

Lisa DiFebo-Osias, owner of DiFebo’s Restaurants in Bethany and Rehoboth beaches, said her anger comes when she walks into a store and sees employees without masks on because they did not want to wear them. In comparison, the DiFebo’s staff works eight-hour shifts while wearing N95 masks without taking them off once.

Read more

State’s jobless rate rises again

From Delaware State News

DOVER — Delaware’s unemployment rate rose again in October, the fourth straight month it has increased.

Data released Friday by the Delaware Department of Labor estimates 3.7 percent of the state’s workforce was not employed last month, up .2 percent from September, Delaware’s unemployment level has surpassed the U.S. rate for the first time since December 2017.

The First State’s unemployment rate hit 3.2 percent in April, remaining there for three months before it began climbing again. The national rate has fluctuated since then but now sits at 3.6 percent, an increase of .1 percent from the month before.

“Unpublished unemployment data from the Delaware Current Population Survey using 12-month averages show that the share of job losers has increased to 75 percent of the unemployed from just under 40 percent one year ago,” Tom Dougherty, the acting chief for the Office of Occupational and Labor Market Information in the Department of Labor, wrote in a commentary released with the numbers Friday.

Read more

Chancery judge: Counties ‘manufacturing excuses’ over property tax fix

From Delaware Online

The judge overseeing a landmark property tax lawsuit said on Friday that he felt officials from the state’s three counties were “manufacturing excuses” in delaying a resolution to the litigation.

The parties all agree that resolution will be the reassessment of property values used to calculate property taxes statewide, values that Chancery Court Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster ruled were unconstitutional earlier this year.

But the education activist plaintiffs that brought the suit and Laster disagree with the counties in the form and timing of how that reassessment occurs, according to testimony Friday during a status hearing regarding debate on how to fix the system.

The plaintiffs want the counties to end the litigation by agreeing to a four-year plan for reassessing property values, plans that each of the counties commissioned from experts and submitted to the court recently.

But attorneys for the counties on Friday asked the judge not to bind them to those plans and instead to put court proceedings on hold while they explore different ways to do a reassessment. That could include asking the General Assembly to approve laws to govern statewide reassessments in the future.

In response, Laster accused the counties of holding up a plan to fix the problem.

“My perception is that there’s been backsliding going on on the county side,” Laster said.

The disagreement means he will order another trial proceeding over how the court will require the counties fix the tax system, and a final plan for the reassessment may not be sorted out before March or April.

“I am disappointed in where we stand,” Laster said. “I don’t feel like things are going swimmingly.”

In May, he ruled that the lack of a reassessment coupled with the counties’ current methods of assessing property values creates a system unfair to the point it violates provisions in the state’s Constitution that require property owners to be taxed equally. He then put the litigation on hold for several months as the COVID-19 pandemic grew.

In October, each of the counties told Laster they were optimistic about reaching a settlement to finalize a plan for reassessment based on proposals created by reassessment experts that would ultimately yield changes to property tax bills in 2024.

It is unclear from the hearing testimony on Friday why the three counties’ position has changed since October.

Read more

UD and DOJ present budget requests in unusual year

From Delaware State News

DOVER — While most of the country is caught up in the outcome of the presidential election, state government continues to function.
The Office of Management and Budget has begun its preliminary budget hearings for various state agencies and related entities, part of the annual process of crafting a budget proposal.
Working with his financial team, Gov. John Carney will unveil recommendations for a spending plan in January. That outline will look quite different from the one proposed at the beginning of this year, with COVID-19 causing revenues to dip, while creating new expenses.
Over the next week-and-a-half, various departments and related entities that rely on state funding, such as higher education institutions, will make their formal presentations to financial officials. These are being held remotely, a reminder of the ongoing pandemic.
The University of Delaware, which presented its request to budget officials Tuesday, projects a deficit of $228 million to $288 million for the fiscal year ending June 30. The institution has reduced discretionary spending, offered retirement packages to staff, cut salaries for some employees, reduced positions and pulled about $100 million from its approximately $1.64 billion endowment.
“The hard reality is that the financial difficulties facing UD — and all higher education institutions — are not a one-year event, and the road to recovery will extend over the next several years,” President Dr. Dennis Assanis said in prepared remarks. “We are already looking toward the challenges for (fiscal year 2022), including a reduced ability to recruit new students, a continuing need to increase student financial aid and the uncertainties of the economy and its effects on our students and their families.
“As you can see, to reduce our deficit we’ve tightened our belts, leaned on our endowment and even eliminated some of our core workforce. The university has very few cost-cutting options left to help us deal with the unprecedented challenges thrust upon us this year.”

Read more

Documents show settlement is near for plan to finally reassess Delaware properties after decades

From Delaware Online

Officials from Delaware’s three counties are negotiating a lawsuit settlement that would see a multiyear process for reassessing the values used to tax individual properties up and down the state – a process that is likely to render widespread changes to residents’ and businesses’ tax bills in coming years.

Attorneys have told a judge they are working to settle, by the end of the year, a lawsuit that found the property valuations currently used by Delaware’s three counties to calculate tax bills to be unconstitutional, according to recent court transcripts and correspondence.

Newly revealed court documents shed light on the time frame and goals being contemplated by county leaders and the education activists who sued them over the local tax systems.

Each county has submitted reassessment planning proposals that outline a four-year process beginning in January for reassessing properties, according to court documents.

“Our goal is to have this done and have the reassessment baked into the bills by 2024,” New Castle County attorney Nicholas Brannick told a Chancery Court judge in a recent hearing.

Under each of the counties’ planning proposals – which are not final and subject to change – new tax bills would not be mailed before 2024. Residents, however, would be notified of new property values in 2023 and be allowed to appeal.

Read more