DOVER, Del.- House Democratic leaders issued a joint statement Friday in response to a proposal by House Republicans to redo the property tax reassessment in New Castle County and revert to previous valuations and tax rates for the 2025-26 tax year.
Speaker Melissa Minor‑Brown, Majority Leader Kerri Evelyn Harris and Majority Whip Ed Osienski said Republicans’ “do-over” would reverse progress made on fairness and stability for homeowners.
“Almost three months ago, the General Assembly reconvened in a special session to begin addressing what went wrong in New Castle County’s property reassessment and to deliver property tax relief to residents,” the statement said.
The Democrats noted that when the problem first came to light, lawmakers met with stakeholders, worked across the aisle and passed legislation aimed at bringing fairness and stability to homeowners. They pointed out that a recent court ruling confirmed the legality of the measure passed in the special session and gave clarity to counties, schools and taxpayers alike.
According to the Democrats’ statement, the rollback proposal would mean returning to “1980s-era valuations,” violating a court-approved settlement in the public-school funding case, reopening Delaware to further litigation, and destabilizing school-district and county budgets already built around the new rates.
The statement also recalled that during the special session, no New Castle County Republican voted against the split-rate plan that was adopted, and that the only rollback proposal was introduced by members of the Democratic caucus but not pursued after legal and practical concerns arose.
“This isn’t about fixing the process. It’s about politics,” the statement said. It added that while lawmakers want to improve the reassessment process in the future, the responsible path is through oversight and improvement — not by “reopening wounds and defying the courts.”
The Democratic leaders concluded: “Delawareans expect and deserve stability, fairness and leadership, not another round of D.C.-style chaos dressed up as a quick fix.”
Thursday some Republican lawmakers called for the entire reassessment to be done over.
State Reps. Kevin Hensley and Mike Smith said the process that determined current property values was “badly flawed.” Both serve on the House Special Property Reassessment Committee.
“Regardless of whether we have a one-tier or two-tier system of tax rates is kind of beside the point,” Hensley said. “The property valuations on which those taxes are based are badly flawed.”
The statewide 2024 reassessment followed a 2020 lawsuit that argued the lack of contemporary valuations had created disparities in public education funding.