Delaware Deserves Better: Holding Government Accountable for Your Tax Dollars
By: Jane Brady, Chair, A Better Delaware
We’ve read a lot in the newspapers recently about the fraud that has occurred in other states involving the misuse or downright theft of public funds. The amount that has been discovered is staggering and reflects poorly on the care government takes with our money. One mother was heard to lament that her son, who has legitimate and significant challenges, cannot get the help he needs because the money for the services he requires was taken by fraud. Fraud, when discovered, can be addressed in the justice system. Offenders can be held accountable.
But there is an equally, if not more, insidious way by which we are deprived of the benefit of the use of the funds we contribute through taxes, assessments and fees. That is, the waste of taxpayer dollars. When our government does not use the money we pay to it effectively, adopts policies that cost us more, or fails to address system shortcomings that interfere with accountability, just as surely as fraud, we are being shortchanged.
There are so many examples here in Delaware of waste and costly policy decisions that reduce return on our tax dollars.
Let’s talk about education. Delaware is among the highest spending states (more than $20,000.00 per student, per year) in the country – top 10. Yet we are in the bottom 10 in student performance (number 44). New and innovative strategies in other states, like Mississippi and Louisiana, have proven tremendously effective in improving student outcomes. Most effective? Making sure students can read at 3rd grade level before moving up to 4th grade. When students can read, students can learn. In Delaware, the majority of our students, at any grade, cannot read at grade level. Our leadership in Delaware is and has been aware of the success this commitment can bring to our students but have failed to implement any program requiring that benchmark. Failing to address this serious shortcoming in Delaware consigns our students to less fulfilling lives and limits their employment options and earning power. We spend nearly one third of our budget on education, and even more spending has been proposed, but this powerful and proven strategy has not been adopted. Government can spend our money better on education.
And who has not noticed the tremendous increase in our electric bills. One year ago, in January 2025, a tremendous wave of dissatisfaction spread across Delaware as electric customers received their bills. Your electricity does not have to cost so much. Again, policies have increased costs without improving results. First, we shut down plants in Delaware generating electricity before we replaced them with new generation options. We then had to import more power from outside our state, making it more costly and less efficient (we lose power in the course of transmission from sources outside Delaware – the further away the source, the more power we pay for but never receive). Fortunately, the legislature heard, loud and clear, your dissatisfaction, and has taken steps to look into alternatives. We at A Better Delaware have made clear we do not support offshore wind (although some members of the General Assembly do) because it is more expensive, less reliable and more harmful to the environment that other choices we could make. But we do support, and the future likely belongs to, nuclear power. There is now a legislative task force looking into bringing the generation of nuclear power to Delaware. The good news is that there are new, less dangerous methods of generating power with nuclear sources, and there is plenty of power left in the discarded fuel cells collecting in the current, larger and more traditional, funnel nuclear plants. You should encourage your legislator to do all in their power to bring nuclear generation to Delaware. Costs will stabilize, we can become an exporter, rather than importer, of electric power, and will stand at the forefront of adopting this means of creating power.
Healthcare is another area where policies adversely affect the value of our tax dollars and restrict access to and the quality of health care in Delaware. We are one of only a few states remaining in the country that has a certificate of need statute (we call it the Public Review). That statute, populated with current providers of health care in Delaware, determines whether a hospital or other facility will be allowed to expand, offer new services or technology and whether a new provider can enter the market in Delaware. Those companies which are already providing services are not inclined to allow competition, and therefore, the costs are higher, and, if denied, fewer and less advanced services are offered. Study after study has shown this to be true – certificate of need laws increase costs and restrict access to care. Delaware’s legislators also need to be honest to the many current and former employees of the state who receive health care – and increase fees as costs go up, just as other insurers do. By waiting years to dare to suggest an increase, the sticker shock is huge, the outcry is loud, and the legislature backs down – doing no one a good service.
Finally, in the category of “whatever happened to…?” Whatever happened with the inability of our state government to account for money in the unemployment fund? We do know there was some money that was embezzled, but you may recall, they could not audit the fund because they could not determine, based on the record keeping, how much money there was, where it went, if it was paid legitimately, and, if there was fraud, by whom? Well, as of January 9, 2026, the Delaware Auditors Office reported that, once again, the fund was not able to be audited. The Department of Labor remains in the midst of updating systems. Meanwhile, we don’t know what the integrity of our unemployment compensation system is – a system that in 2024, administered approximately 344 million dollars.
The bottom line? The state is not careful with our money – they have in place policies that cost us money with no, or negative, results. We have to look out for our bottom line in our personal finances. We should expect no less from the state with our public finances.
Jane Brady serves as Chair of A Better Delaware. She previously served as Attorney General of Delaware and as a Judge of the Delaware Superior Court.