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New Castle County residents are in store for an unprecedented property tax rebate, and the savings are already on the way to local mailboxes.

If you live in the county and notice something different with your most recent tax bill, don’t be alarmed. We’ve got details on what you need to know about your latest bill statement.

What is the tax credit?

Delaware Online/The News Journal previously reported that New Castle County residents would get a slight break on next year’s property tax bill after County Executive Matt Meyer proposed a one-time 5% tax credit for New Castle County residential property owners for the 2024 fiscal year.

Meyer included the initiative in his budget proposal for the 2024 fiscal year, unveiled in late March, and said it would help offset the rise in inflation. He added that the county had over $150 million in tax reserves, proposing to use around $4.6 million to give back to the county’s residential property owners.

No tax or fee increases were announced.

“My job every day is to provide county residents with the highest quality services at the lowest possible cost,” Meyer said. “After years of hard work expanding services while generating savings, we are proud that when you receive your tax bill this year your county tax will be lower than last year.

“In my lifetime, a county executive has never reduced property taxes. We will continue to work to deliver more efficient and honest government to you.”

How will the tax credit work?

The 5% tax credit will be applied to 2023 annual property tax bills and is applicable only to owners of residential property.

The median property tax for homes outside of incorporated areas is about $530 a year. The average unincorporated property owner will save around $26.

Residents in incorporated New Castle County (Wilmington, Newark, etc.) will save less.

For homeowners paying property taxes through their mortgage companies, the savings will be seen in your escrow account.

When will I receive the tax credit?

The rebate, included in the most recent tax bill, already should be making its way to residents in the county, according to Brian Cunningham, New Castle County spokesman.

Some residents may not notice the rebate because it could be included in their monthly mortgage payment, he said.

Reporter Molly McVety contributed to this report.

Got a tip or a story idea? Contact Krys'tal Griffin at [email protected].

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The number of vacant properties in New Castle County peaked in 2017 at 1,350, according to county officials. Since then, the Vacant Spaces to Livable Places initiative has worked to reduce those vacant locations with much success. In six years, the number of vacancies has dropped 53%.

This week, County Executive Matt Meyer celebrated the completion of the latest vacant property to be transformed under the program, a spot in Minquadale that will be used as a transitional home for young women aging out of foster care.

“There are over 700 properties we’ve now done like this on my watch,” Meyer said. “This starts by identifying a problem, a problem of delinquent housing stock in neighborhoods not just here in Minquadale, but across the county, really the city of Wilmington, the state, and to some extent the country.”

Due to its condition, property buyers overlooked this space. The partially collapsed roof held a considerable liability, and the expensive delinquency rate discouraged buyers.

According to Meyer, the Department of Purchasing decided to run a bid and sell the property for zero dollars to bring a change to the community. The buyer was a nonprofit called Duffy’s Hope, run by CEO and founder Duffy Samuels. He plans to use the location to help address homelessness in line with mission.

“I’ve seen a lot of homelessness with teenagers and kids over the age 18, young adults, so it was mainly my focus to try to help with the homelessness here in the state of Delaware,” Samuels said.

Four young women aging out of foster care will take up residence in the space, working closely with case managers to develop a plan to get them on their feet and learn the ways of independent living.

“Our goal is to help them get their GED or a high school diploma, also help them get an education in college, and help them prepare for the workforce. And then also help them with their mental health,” Duffy said.

In addition to help from Duffy’s Hope, the young women will have the opportunity to pursue a college education tuition-free at Wilmington University.

Part of the money generated from the county’s efforts to transform vacant properties into contributing to the tax base will go to school districts across the county.

“The 700 properties have generated over $3.4 million of revenue for the government,” Meyer said of the program’s financial impact. “$1.7 million has gone to help our schools.”

The ribbon-cutting ceremony and the official opening of the transitional house are scheduled for September.

NEW CASTLE – In June, elected officials were lamenting Delaware once again being the only state without commercial air service, but on Thursday they were celebrating the largest expansion of service in state history courtesy of Avelo Airlines.

What a difference a year makes.

The upstart Houston-based airline has found quick success in Delaware, flying more than 25,000 passengers into and out of the now-renamed Wilmington Airport (ILG) off U.S. Route 13 in New Castle to five destinations in Florida. That spurred Avelo to add nine new destinations from Delaware, including five new states, and station a second Boeing 737 airplane here.

That growth is the largest single expansion by Avelo in any market and is faster than other successful hubs that it has developed, such as New Haven, Conn., said Trevor Yealy, head of network planning for Avelo.

The new destinations include Nashville (BNA), Myrtle Beach, S.C. (MYR); Savannah, Ga./Hilton Head S.C. (SAV); Charleston, S.C. (CHS); Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C. (GSP); Raleigh/Durham, N.C. (RDU); Wilmington, N.C. (ILM); and Daytona Beach (DAB) and Melbourne/Cocoa Beach (MLB) in Florida. Flights to the new destinations, which will leave twice a week, will begin June 22 and feature one-way promotional base fares of $29 to start – like all ultra-low-cost carriers, Avelo charges separate baggage and seat fees.

“Winter in Florida is generally a good time of year [for air travel]. We thought that would work, but there was no guarantee. But the response since we started flying has been tremendous,” Yealy told reporters. “That gave us the confidence to say, ‘OK, we can expand. We know people in the Northeast like to go to the Carolinas in the summer and like to go to Nashville. So, let’s start expanding there so we can really capture more of that pent up demand.’”

Avelo began flying five routes to Florida destinations from Wilmington-New Castle Airport on Feb. 1, and through March 29 had marked 11,266 enplanements, or passenger boardings of commercial flights, from Delaware. Comparably, it took rival carrier Frontier Airlines, which only flew to Orlando and left the airport in June 2022, almost 10 months to reach the critical 10,000 enplanement threshold in 2021.

“We’ve watched people say, ‘We’re going to fly out of New Castle County Airport’ … and it always flopped. Let’s try again. It failed. But great ideas need timing, and I’ve got to tell you the timing this time is killer elite,” Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki remarked during the announcement of the new flights.

While many of the new cities are traditional leisure destinations, others could present additional passenger opportunities, either for visiting friends and relatives or business travel. Destinations like Nashville, Raleigh/Durham and Greenville/Spartanburg are near major universities where families may want to visit a student, while Raleigh/Durham is also in the Research Triangle Park that features thousands of biotech, life science and advanced material researchers.

Yealy said that about 80% of passengers on the flights originated in Delaware, meaning only about one in five passengers are coming to the First State.

“I think over time that will shift a little bit, but we always expect to be a more heavily Wilmington/Delaware Valley-point-of-sale focus,” he noted, adding that it’s harder to market to consumers in destination markets like Orlando where there is lots of competition.

One key to Avelo’s Delaware success has been its local marketing, which features billboards on major highways, ads at the Christiana Mall, regional radio spots and giveaways with local chambers of commerce, among other efforts. On Thursday, the airline announced a major sponsorship of University of Delaware athletics as well.

In looking at Avelo’s service network, there are some northern destinations like New Haven or Rochester, N.Y., that are not served out of Delaware, but almost every other southern East Coast destination served by Avelo will now fly here, aside from Sarasota, Fla.

Yealy said that the airline continues to evaluate new destinations, including to some new locales.

“There’s plenty of dots on the map that could fulfill more airplanes on this side of the country – East Coast, Southeast, Midwest – and maybe, in the future, perhaps we’ll look at something in the Caribbean or something even further west,” he told Delaware Business Times.

Gov. John Carney, who credited the work of a number of partners led by airport’s manager, the bi-state Delaware River and Bay Authority, said he was thrilled by the expansion and what it means in helping to sell the First State as a destination for new residents and employers.

“This is just really exciting for our state and our region because people, as they make decisions about where to locate their business, want to be in a place that has fun things to do. It doesn’t get much more fun than this,” Carney said, noting that he has family members in several of the new markets that he would try to visit via Avelo Airline.

To date, Avelo Airline has already hired more than 75 people in Delaware, including airport operations crew members, customer service group members, maintenance technicians, pilots, flight attendants and supervisors. With the addition of a second plane, the airline aims to add at least 35 more, Yealy said.

Future of ILG

With the booming success of Avelo out of the gate, the DRBA is also planning a physical expansion of the terminal in a project that could cost up to $10 million, according to Stephen Williams, the DRBA deputy director who heads its airports.

It filed building plans with the county Wednesday to add nearly 7,000 square feet of waiting area that will allow it to more comfortably fit passengers on concurrent flights and board two flights at once. With Avelo averaging 90% occupancy on flights in March, the current waiting room can fill quickly.

Williams said DRBA planned to fund the project through some of its savings, but also through the $4.50 federal surcharge paid by every passenger. It can’t use additional federal funds obtained through the Commercial Service Airport designation, because they are earmarked for safety-related expenses like runways and lighting.

The waiting room expansion isn’t the only work by DRBA that has assisted the growth of Avelo, as it completed a $2 million renovation, including a new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint and baggage screening areas, in 2020.

The DRBA is currently contracted to operate the airport through June 2025, but New Castle County, which owns the airport, has received other interest from potential bidders in a request for information process last year. County Executive Matt Meyer said that negotiations between the county and DRBA are ongoing, but the success of Avelo doesn’t necessarily change the county’s position.

“As you can imagine these extraordinarily legally complicated issues. There are a lot of people who work here; we want to make sure we take care of everyone and want to make sure we do it in a way that enables the airport to grow,” he said. “[The success of Avelo] has been fantastic and we want to see it grow.”

Outside of commercial air service, the DRBA is actively marketing the production hangar that was shuttered last year by Dassault Falcon. The French company that repaired, painted and outfitted private jets has a lease that runs to the end of 2024, but the two partners are actively seeking a new tenant, and potentially subleasing the remaining portion of Dassault’s lease, Williams said.

“We think that there’s still talent in the area from a labor perspective,” he added, noting that such supplementary services to air travel is a major component of the daily work on the airport.

In 2019, Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki gave David Mosley of the Delaware Center for Homeless Veterans a prestigious community service honor.

The Access Wilmington Award, presented by Purzycki and then-Council President Haneefa Shabazz in a public ceremony at city hall, touted Mosley’s “dedication not only to providing housing and services to homeless veterans with and without disabilities, but also for tapping into the social capital that they bring to everyone in the city.”

The Purzycki administration had such faith in Mosley that in 2022 — when his agency began running programs for clients and their families at New Castle County’s innovative Hope Center for people experiencing homelessness — the city used $690,000 of its federal pandemic relief money to support the effort.

Specifically, the city agreed to pay the vets homeless center, known as DCHV, to provide monitoring and mentoring services as well as 60 days of meals for people staying in the Hope Center, a former 192-room Sheraton hotel off Interstate 95 near New Castle.

But less than four years after paying tribute to Mosley, the city is suing him and DCHV in Superior Court, accusing him of “fraud” and “grave misrepresentation.” Specifically, the lawsuit says Mosley spent at least $339,000 of the money on unauthorized salaries for himself and other administrators, five extra months of meals, and equipment.

“Mosley’s illegal diversion of the grant funds, left the Hope Center without sufficient monitor-mentors for months, depriving homeless individuals at the Hope Center of critical supportive services,’’ according to the lawsuit.

Among other allegations, the lawsuit says Mosley knowingly sent the city “fraudulent”’ monthly invoices with costs that were “ineligible” for payment.

“These invoices were submitted to the City with the intent that eligible and ineligible costs would be reimbursed by the city,” the lawsuit said. “Mosley’s scheme was successful, and the City paid each invoice it received in full” because Wilmington relied on his “honesty and integrity.”

The invoices included documentation that all salaries for which payment was sought were for monitors and mentors, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit cites information obtained from an audit conducted by an outside contractor for the city after the Purzycki administration was notified about suspected discrepancies by New Castle County, which owns the facility. The county, along with the city of Newark, also used federal coronavirus relief dollars to pay Mosley’s agency a total of $1.75 million for the one-year contract that expired in February. The agency is no longer working with the Hope Center.

Mosley, an Air Force veteran who founded the center in 2010, would not comment on the allegations. Attorney Geoffrey Grivner, who is representing Mosley and the agency, also had no comment.

The agency has a facility in Wilmington with apartments for up to 51 formerly homeless veterans and a commercial kitchen where they learn culinary skills. Another facility for up to 60 vets is now under construction in the city.

While the lawsuit says Mosley concealed and suppressed employment information and left out other “material facts” when submitting invoices, city officials would not agree to an interview about how their own internal financial controls didn’t detect any problems until the county alerted them last fall.

“The city has no further comment beyond the information contained in the court documents,” mayoral spokesman John Rago said in a written statement, “and looks forward to recovering its funds from Mr. Mosley and his organization.”

Wilmington paid all invoices until county review found “red flags’

The city’s lawsuit focuses mainly on $245,000 paid in salaries to Mosley, the clinic’s clinical and operations directors, and more than a dozen other employees it claims were not part of the monitoring and mentoring staff at the Hope Center.

Mentors and monitors perform on-site duties such as coordinating safety procedures, ensuring policies are followed, serving as an advocate and motivator for clients, and establishing rapport with them while assisting with skill building, relationship development, mentoring, self-esteem, and goal setting. They also attend meetings of the Intensive Case Management Team.

Beyond the allegations that Mosley knowingly deceived the city by providing false invoices month after month, the lawsuit paints a picture of an agency that played fast and loose with the terms of the contract and stymied the city’s attempts to get clarity on the work performed. Among the accusations:

Since Mosley did not comply fully with the audit, the lawsuit says the city can’t determine if more than $339,000 in overpayments were made.

Carrie Casey, who as general manager of the county’s Department of Community Services oversees Hope Center operations, said her office decided in the fall of 2022 to audit how the $1.75 million the three government entities provided was being spent. The county didn’t suspect any fraud, but wanted to monitor how the money from the three separate governments was being spent, Casey said.

“We weren’t really privy to what was going on with these other contracts,” Casey said. “And we identified some issues and then we sent it to Wilmington” so the city could review whether Mosley’s agency complied with that contract.

Casey wouldn’t say exactly what the county found that raised officials’ suspicions.

“We were just making sure that everything was running the way that it should,’’ she said. “And then we did see some red flags. I can’t tell you specifically what they were, but we packaged it all up and sent it to Wilmington. And they went from there.”

She said the county’s review found no problems with how Mosley’s agency was using money supplied by the county and Newark.

Casey said that while the issues Wilmington cited in the lawsuit led to some staffing problems at the 24-hour Hope Center, other service providers were able to provide the monitoring and mentoring services for clients, which number about 300, including family members. She said one family of nine is currently staying there.

“We were a little short-staffed, but we have a lot of different agencies in the building” who are helping with case management, Casey said. “So we did not see huge holes in service.”

DNREC, DHSS Advises New Castle County Residents to Stay Indoors, and Kent and Sussex Residents to Limit Time Outdoors

Wildfires in eastern Canada emitting particulate matter into the atmosphere continue to cause poor air quality throughout the region, including in Delaware. The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) – which monitors air quality across the state – and the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), Division of Public Health (DPH) urges Delawareans to take precautions to reduce risks associated with exposure to unhealthy and hazardous air quality levels.

DNREC and DHSS urge Delawareans in areas with hazardous air quality levels to stay indoors. Event organizers should consider moving outside activities inside where possible. Residents in areas with unhealthy or very unhealthy air quality levels are advised to limit time outside. As of Thursday morning, much of New Castle County was under air quality levels of 301 to 500, represented by a maroon color code indicating hazardous on the Air Quality Index (AQI). Kent and Sussex counties have been under purple or very unhealthy levels of 201 to 300 and red or unhealthy levels of 151 to 200, respectively.

In addition, people in sensitive groups, including those with heart or lung disease, older adults and children, are advised to continue to monitor local air quality and take additional precautions as necessary.

“Right now, we need everyone to be safe, especially Delawareans with increased risk from this very unhealthy air,” said Secretary DNREC Shawn M. Garvin. “We love to get outdoors, especially here in Delaware, but today is not the day. Delawareans should spend this time indoors as much as possible.”

For those who must be outdoors, properly-fitted N95 or KN95 masks help reduce exposure from particulate matter. Typical masks such as cloth or surgical will not provide adequate protection from poor air quality from particulate matter. The best protection is to remain indoors in a cool and clean environment.

DNREC also encourages Delawareans to sign up for air quality alerts at de.gov/aqi. In addition, EPA’s AirNow.gov site offers daily AQI forecasts and real-time conditions across the United States, with interactive maps to more detailed state and county air quality information.

For health-related questions, please contact 24/7 Health Systems Protection 302-744-4700 or [email protected].

About DNREC The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control protects and manages the state’s natural resources, protects public health, provides outdoor recreational opportunities, and educates Delawareans about the environment. The DNREC Division of Air Quality monitors and regulates all emissions to the air. For more information, visit the website and connect with @DelawareDNREC on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn.

About DHSS The Delaware Health and Social Services is committed to improving the quality of the lives of Delaware’s citizens by promoting health and well-being, fostering self-sufficiency, and protecting vulnerable populations.

DNREC Media Contacts: Nikki Lavoie, [email protected]; Michael Globetti, [email protected]

DHSS/DPH Media Contact: Tim Mastro, [email protected]; Laura Matusheski, [email protected]

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The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) has issued warnings of poor air quality in Delaware. Air quality that is unhealthy or very unhealthy is predicted Wednesday, June 7 and Thursday, June 8 by DNREC, and the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), Division of Public Health (DPH) has advised all individuals to limit prolonged or heavy physical activity and time spent outdoors and to stay indoors, preferably in a space with filtered air.

Wildfires in eastern Canada are emitting particulate matter into the atmosphere, affecting air quality throughout the northeast, including in Delaware. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provides an Air Quality Index with color codes to inform the public about conditions and how to avoid health effects associated with poor air quality. DNREC has declared a Code Red Action Day for particulate matter for Wednesday, June 7 and Thursday, June 8. These alerts warn of unhealthy particle pollution levels. DNREC also warned effects from the smoke may at times cause purple conditions, meaning the air quality is very unhealthy.

Particle pollution can affect anyone, but it bothers some people more than others. DNREC and DPH have provided the following guidance:

DPH warns that certain populations—including young children, older adults, and those with lung conditions—could be more significantly impacted. While canceling outdoor events is not necessary, it is advisable to relocate indoors when possible. Individuals should make health decisions in consultation with their medical professionals and based on their own considerations.

About DNREC The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control protects and manages the state’s natural resources, protects public health, provides outdoor recreational opportunities, and educates Delawareans about the environment. The DNREC Division of Air Quality monitors and regulates all emissions to the air. For more information, visit the website and connect with @DelawareDNREC on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn.

About DHSS The Delaware Health and Social Services is committed to improving the quality of the lives of Delaware’s citizens by promoting health and well-being, fostering self-sufficiency, and protecting vulnerable populations.

DNREC Media Contacts: Nikki Lavoie, [email protected]; Michael Globetti, [email protected]

DHSS/DPH Media Contact: Tim Mastro, [email protected]; Laura Matusheski, [email protected]

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Related Topics: air quality, air quality index, health and safety, public health, warning

Keep up to date by receiving a daily digest email, around noon, of current news release posts from state agencies on news.delaware.gov.

Here you can subscribe to future news updates.