Milton council declines to use new county assessment for upcoming budget

Milton Town Council has elected to continue using its own 2009 property assessment for the Fiscal Year 2026 budget instead of new assessed values from Sussex County.

Council is seeking to maintain the status quo as far as property taxes are concerned, as officials do not want to hit residents with another increase. 

Town Manager Kristy Rogers told council July 7 that she wanted to have the discussion prior to the first presentation of the FY 2026 budget Monday, July 21. Rogers said town staff’s recommendation was that the new county numbers are not a good fit at this time. She said council should defer using the county numbers until at least FY 2027. 

The county was mandated to conduct a property reassessment for the nearly 200,000 parcels as part of a court-ordered update in Delaware’s three counties that resolved a 2018 education funding lawsuit. The county had not conducted a reassessment since 1974. According to the county’s data, the total taxable assessed value of property in Sussex County increased from $4,417,520,362 in 1973 to $91,574,891,600.

Rogers said the biggest issue is that the reassessment is meant to be revenue neutral, but to do that, taxes on residential properties would go up while taxes on commercial properties would go down. About 87% of Milton properties are residential. 

“The assessment is not the problem; it's the taxes,” she said. “It’s having a disproportionate effect on residential properties versus commercial properties.”

As an example, Rogers said a typical Milton FY 2025 tax bill is about $719. If the town were to adopt the county assessments and stay revenue neutral, that average tax bill would jump to $1,052. 

“The burden is being shifted to your residential property owners using county assessment. That is huge and that is a significant impact,” she said. “We’re not even talking about a tax rate increase. That’s just the simple math of adopting the county reassessment and staying revenue neutral.”

Town Clerk Stephanie Coulbourne said she reached out to 14 other municipalities to see who was using the new county assessment. She said two that were are Henlopen Acres and South Bethany. Ellendale is planning to use the new figures in 2026, she said. Ellendale and Henlopen Acres do not have any commercial parcels within their borders. Coulbourne said the Town of Bethel is also planning to use the county figures, and they expect their residential tax rates to double. She said the majority of the municipalities she spoke to would not be using the county assessment this year. 

Both Rogers and council were wary about anything that would be considered a property tax increase after the town raised property taxes by more than 30% last year. Using its own assessor, the town conducts quarterly assessments to account for changes to properties. 

“We cannot increase taxes again,” Vice Mayor Lee Revis-Plank said.