The Ongoing Promise of Freedom

By: Jane Brady, Chair, A Better Delaware

I attended a funeral recently, well, a celebration of life, really, and it struck a chord in me with regard to what is going on in our country today.

I have been to many celebrations of life. People express the goodness and positive impact the deceased had on their lives, the challenges overcome, the victories of perseverance, love and spirit.

Of course, however, every person who has lived has had shortcomings, disappointments, failures. But, when we celebrate that person, we celebrate the positive, the good, and we understand that while we are all flawed, we are all valued.

250 years ago, a great experiment began. An experiment that placed power in the hands of the governed – to make decisions about what they valued and prioritized, and who would lead them, even how  much they would pay in taxes. They may choose differently than you would, even differently than the people in power would, but the authority to make those decisions lay within the individual citizens.

Today, in our country, rather than celebrate the tremendous gift that power gives us, there are those who focus instead on rejecting that system, and embracing a government that is overpowering, all-inclusive.

It is, perhaps, easier for citizens to just be on board for the ride, because governing ourselves takes time, effort, responsibility and accountability. Our republic expects our citizens to be informed, engaged and to act in their own self-interest. That could be asking a lot.

So, these new leaders say, trust us! We will take care of you! we will fight your fight! We will secure your rights! But who are “they”? They are the government. They will do as they choose. But, once you give them that power, you lose the authority over your own destiny.

There is a reason, in countries which do not have a democracy, a republic, that there is a collection of power in a small group, or one individual. They have the power to decide. Some inherited that power. Others took it by force. The end result has been that “they” – those in control – can do as they please, while the citizens do as they say.

In this country, we used force to take the power away from that small group, that individual – the King – and gave it to the people. We the People, have made this country the success it is today. On this, our 250th Anniversary, let us celebrate that greatness and aspire to more.

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.

Delaware Education Reform Must Focus on Learning, Not Just Spending or Consolidation

By: Jane Brady, Chair, A Better Delaware

There are two major events likely to occur in the next year related to education in Delaware. One is change in the way we fund our schools. The other is the prospect of consolidation of the four major school districts in (most of) New Castle County. Both are of concern.

First, the funding. We already spend about 25% of our state budget on education – one of the highest spenders in the country. We average over $20,000 per student, according to the Department of Education. But that number is much lower in charter schools, which are also public schools, and is much higher in some of the lowest performing schools in the state.

Concerns have been raised about disparities in funding, focused on the more prosperous areas of the state, which are claimed to have more money, so better school funding.  In fact, many resources are funneled to the poor performing schools in order to add special services and resources. One study, by the Caesar Rodney Institute found that in one of the poorest performing schools in the state, in the City of Wilmington, the amount spent per pupil per year was in excess of $30,000. Yet, students were performing at the lowest levels – less than 10% proficiency in some years. (That means out of 100 students, 10 read at grade level.)

The problem is not money. We have said it before, consistently, and will continue to do so. Delaware is in the top ten in spending in the nation, bottom 4 or 5 in performance. If what you seek from our education system is learning, achievement and accomplishment, we need to change what we are doing, not how much we are spending.

So, the idea of consolidation was proposed. It is a change in what we are doing – moving from four school districts to one school district of over 43,000 students. Questions abound. Will parents get more say in where their children can attend school? Will transportation be provided to the children who choose a school further from their home?  Will there be cuts in the bureaucracy and unnecessary administrative staff? Will we simply be moving pieces of the old system to new locations? Will we change anything about the curriculum? Will we add accountability?

What about the City of Wilmington? The vast majority of our state’s failing schools are located there. That is not a reflection on the capability of the students, but of the system that is failing them. The City’s children are not likely to fare better when they become a small piece of a larger bureaucracy, swallowed up by the numbers. The City of Wilmington should take back the education of their children. The state is failing them. The City can look to the remarkable comeback of New Orleans. Once at the bottom of all schools in the state, after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans took a look at what might work. The latest Education Scorecard, which is compiled by researchers at Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth, ranks Louisiana as the only state to exceed pre-pandemic performance in math and reading, and the researchers credit New Orleans’ efforts with the leap. New Orleans now is in the center of the pack and poised to keep rising, with “impressive” test scores, graduation rates and college enrollment. The City of New Orleans now is nearly “all-charter, all-choice” and has put parents in the driver’s seat when it comes to making decisions about their child’s education.

We do not need to change buildings or staff or even adopt a consolidation to improve our education system.  We need to change our delivery and accountability. Our current and former Governors failed us when they did not advocate adoption of the accountability that has moved Mississippi students ahead of the nation in improvement in student performance. Adding money to a system that is not delivering a product – learning – is wasting money.

There are good and dedicated people in our schools, teachers and administrators alike. But the leadership has not created or supported the energy, direction and inspiration those dedicated professionals can provide to generate curiosity and interest in our students, and, thus, learning. Bigger may not be better. What is clear is that the focus on where kids are learning, instead of that they are learning, is misguided and should not take priority in effort, time or funding over changing the lives of the students who depend on our schools to give them the tools they need to prosper in live and the workforce.

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.

SB 322: Delaware Should Not Put School Property Taxes on Autopilot

By: Charlie Copeland, Guest Contributor

Delaware’s school-finance system has real problems, but automatic annual tax increases are NOT the solution. SB 322 moves Delaware toward a system in which school districts impose recurring annual property-tax increases without voters’ approval while educational outcomes remain among the weakest in the nation.

How SB 322 Expands School Taxing Authority 

SB 322 does two important things. First, it replaces a 10% post-reassessment tax increase cap with a formula tied to the district’s prior-year operating revenues and the average growth rate of taxable property since the previous reassessment.

Second, and more troubling, SB 322 would allow school districts to raise school property taxes by up to 2% annually without a referendum, provided the district’s “operational reserve balance” does not exceed 10% of annual revenue.

A 2% annual increase may sound modest, but compounded over 10 years, it amounts to a 21.9% increase. Using the New Castle County tax rate formula, for a $378,000 home in the Christina School District paying $3,023 in school property taxes, a recurring 2% annual increase would become approximately $3,685 after 10 years – costing the homeowner about $662 – before considering any other tax increases, reassessments, or general household inflation.

Minimal Statewide Enrollment Growth Weakens the Case for SB 322

Delaware’s annual student count (also called the unit count) includes public school students enrolled and in attendance during the last 10 school days of September and is the basis for Delaware school funding. According to the Delaware Department of Education, from 2015 to 2025, total annual enrollment in Delaware district schools grew by only 0.38%, an average increase of only 34 students per year statewide. Given such minimal statewide enrollment growth, the case for a new statewide mechanism allowing recurring tax increases deserves careful scrutiny. At the same time, that statewide figure masks significant differences among districts, with some growing rapidly while others are shrinking.

It is true that some districts face enrollment pressure. Cape Henlopen and Appoquinimink, for example, have 10-year growth rates of 30.2% and 24.9%, respectively. However, other districts have declined sharply. Christina, Colonial, and Red Clay have lost 17.7%, 15.3%, and 10.9% of their enrollment, respectively.  Why do these districts need the authority for an automatic, annual tax increase of 2%, without taking the issue to a vote by referendum?

It is clear from this data that any case for higher taxes should be district-specific, tied to actual enrollment, student need, inflation, and demonstrated efficiency.

Why SB 322 May Encourage Districts to Spend More

SB 322 says districts cannot use the 2% authority if their “operational reserve balance” exceeds 10% of annual revenue. But that term is NOT defined in code. Does “annual revenue” mean total district revenue, local revenue, current-expense revenue, discretionary revenue, or all-funds revenue? Does “operational reserve” mean audited fund balance, projected cash balance, unencumbered local balance, or another Department of Education measure?

More importantly, penalizing reserve holdings incentivizes districts to reduce them to maintain their free taxing authority. In essence, SB 322 creates an incentive for districts to reduce reserves so they can increase spending. Instead, Delaware should create incentives to allocate existing spending more efficiently.

Delaware’s Educational Results Are Terrible

According to Delaware’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget, approximately one-third of Delaware’s spending goes to K-12 education (District and Charter Operations), yet Delaware’s educational results are among the worst in the nation. According to The Nation’s Report Card, 40% of Delaware eighth graders and 45% of Delaware fourth graders scored below Basic in reading on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).  Similarly, a 2024 Urban Institute analysis of demographically adjusted student performance ranked Delaware 48th in the nation in eighth-grade math and reading.

If lawmakers believe referenda are too blunt or disruptive, they should replace them with a stronger compact between districts and taxpayers. Funding growth should be tied to publicly available, measurable outcomes such as those shown in the table below.

Furthermore, Delaware should require publicly available efficiency audits conducted by the independently elected State Auditor before districts exercise automatic taxing authority. Those audits should review central-office staffing, procurement, transportation, facilities, energy costs, vendor contracts, administrative overhead, and program duplication.

Taxpayers Deserve Accountability Before Automatic Tax Increases

As written, SB 322 removes voter oversight while rewarding fiscal mismanagement and providing additional taxing authority regardless of educational underperformance.

Property taxes are paid from household cash flow, not from assessed value. Seniors on fixed incomes, young families buying homes at today’s interest rates, working-class homeowners, small landlords, and small businesses all face rising costs from insurance, utilities, maintenance, food, health care, and borrowing. An automatic school-tax escalator may be administratively convenient, but it is indifferent to a taxpayer’s ability to pay, the needs of a specific district, or educational outcomes.

Tax increases should be earned through results and approved by voters—not granted automatically by statute.

Charlie Copeland is the Director of the Center for Economic & Fiscal Policy for the Cesar Rodney Institute.

Pennsylvania Showed the Way on Utility Greed. Will Delaware Follow? *

By: Jane Brady, Chair, A Better Delaware

Pennsylvania just gave Delaware a roadmap for confronting the greed of monopoly utilities. Whether Delaware’s leaders choose to follow it remains to be seen.

When Governor Josh Shapiro called out PECO’s rate request for what it was – a profitable utility reaching into the pockets of working families – he didn’t do it with a quiet regulatory filing or a carefully-worded press statement. He did it loudly, publicly, and by name. The result? A utility that had insisted its investment plans were fixed and essential suddenly discovered they possessed some flexibility.

Delaware should be paying attention. Not because our situation is identical to Pennsylvania’s, but because the underlying dynamic is precisely the same.

Delmarva Power is an Exelon subsidiary, the same multi-billion-dollar corporate parent as PECO. These are not struggling enterprises. Exelon is one of the most financially stable utility conglomerates in the country, and its Q1 2026 Earnings Report showed yet another increase in profits. It should be no surprise that, due to Exelon’s guaranteed returns baked into the regulatory framework, captive consumers have nowhere else to turn, and revenue streams are protected from virtually every market risk that ordinary Delaware businesses face every day. When a company like that comes to the Delaware Public Service Commission asking for more, the first question shouldn’t be how much is reasonable. The first question should be why the hike is necessary in the first place.

Here’s something that rarely makes it into the conversation about utility bills: The actual cost of energy has stayed relatively constant for years. What has exploded is the delivery charge. The fee that goes directly to the regulated utility company. The charge is not set by the market, but by regulators, and is guaranteed regardless of how energy prices fluctuate. For many Delaware customers, delivery now rivals or exceeds the energy cost itself. That’s not a market outcome. That’s a regulatory outcome, and it can be changed.

Delaware is a small state. That’s usually described as a limitation. In this case, it’s an advantage. Our legislature is more accessible. Our governor’s office is not some far-off institution. The Public Service Commission is not some untouchable bureaucracy that can’t be influenced by public pressure. What happens in Dover is clear to the people it affects. There is no reason why Delaware cannot move faster and more decisively than its larger neighbors on this issue.

That starts with elected officials being willing to say plainly what Governor Shapiro said in Pennsylvania. Utilities earning hundreds of millions in profit do not have an automatic right to collect even more from ratepayers, and the public interest requires oversight, not blind acceptance. Utility companies are highly sophisticated. They have teams of lawyers and consultants, and they know how to present a rate case in language that makes it sound convincing and unavoidable. The response to that shouldn’t be passivity, but political will.

Governor Matt Meyer and Delaware’s General Assembly should be using every available tool – legislative, regulatory, and rhetorical – to ensure that the era of routine rate increases is over. The Public Service Commission should be hearing loud and clear from elected officials that affordability is not a secondary issue to be balanced against utility revenue projections. It is the primary concern.

Lawmakers are starting to pay attention, with one state senator reacting: ‘I think it’s a little tone deaf to come with the rate increase, such as the one they did, with a 10.5% return on equity for Delawareans.’” Now it’s time to take concrete action. Reject the current rate hike request and implement a full freeze on further requests going forward.

The utilities will say they need the revenue to modernize the grid, to ensure reliability, to meet clean energy standards. Some of that is true, but none of it means we accept it no questions asked. Investments can be phased. Returns can be scrutinized. Shareholders can absorb more risk than Delaware ratepayers currently bear on their behalf.

Pennsylvania showed what’s possible when a governor decides that utility customers are worth fighting for. Delaware’s leaders just need the political will to engage.

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.

*Originally published as an op-ed in the Delaware State News on June 8, 2026.