Sussex County Council Honors Retiring Employees, Looks to Boost FY 22 Budget with Additional RTT Revenue
The Sussex County Council has honored three County employees on their retirement. The county gave tributes and plaques to County Paramedic 2, Deborah Holding, Director of Environmental Services & Engineering, Brad Hawkes and Clerk of Council, Robin Griffith. All three have been employed by the county for just over 30 years.
County Administrator Todd Lawson updated the Council on the progress of Tyler Technologies, which is doing the data collection for the reassessment project. This week the data collectors will be moving into the Long Neck and Angola areas. The reassessement should be completed in late 2023.
County Finance Director, Gina Jennings talked to the Council about how to incorporate an additional $12-million dollars that the County has received from the realty transfer tax (RTT) – over the budgeted $24.9-million and state pass-through grant revenue into the FY 22 budget. Jennings has proposed to allocate $6.4 million to the municipalities of Sussex County. Each of the towns would receive from $100,000 to $500,000 – based on municipalities population and budget – and would be eligible for RTT-eliglble expenses – including public safety, infrastructure projects and economic development. This would be one-time funding. The remaining $5.6 million will go towards land acquisition for open space. The Council has introduced the ordinance – a public hearing will be held on March 1st.
The Council revisited two pieces of Old Business – two ordinance amendments to the Comprehensive Plan – one in the Delmar area and the other east of Milton. Both amendments have been deferred while additional written comment was taken. During this week’s meeting P&Z Director, Jamie Whitehouse told the Council that the Delmar ordinance received 25 letters in response as well as a petition with 519 signatures. The Milton area received 152 responses in opposition and 53 in support. Council has closed the public record for both ordinances and they will brought up for a vote at a later date.
