Sports
Rock
Fun
State champion teams honored in Dover
SDSA rocks the crowd
Bethany releases concert schedule
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MARCH 28, 2025
THE LOCAL VOICE OF YOUR COMMUNITY.
BOE to ask County to look at impact fees
Volume 22, Issue 13
FREE
Something for the soul
By Kerin Magill Staff Reporter Less than a week after a referendum to raise taxes for the Indian River School District failed, teachers, students and staff members from district schools pleaded with the IRSD Board of Education not to cut programs or staff. The referendum vote totals were 4,749 for and 5,424 against. The school board also approved a resolution to ask the Sussex County Council to consider allowing the implementation of voluntary school assessments, or impact fees, which would assess developers for impacts their projects have on resources, such as schools. Sussex County is the only Delaware County that does not currently allow impact fees. The referendum would have provided funding for increased operating costs. Immediately following the referendum, IRSD Superintendent Jay Owens said, “We are obviously disappointed with the result of the referendum but understand that this is part of the school funding process in Delaware.” He said he understood the uncertainty facing residents as Sussex County rolls out the results of its property reassessment process ahead of 2025 property tax bills being sent out beginning in See SCHOOLS page 6
Special to the Coastal Point • Marian Dowling
There’s very little that does more for your peace-of-mind than a glorious sunrise over the ocean. To be honest, we have no data to back up that statement, but we still feel pretty good about it.
Bethany passes annual budget, with no tax increase By Susan Canfora Staff Reporter The Bethany Beach Town Council, by unanimous vote at the Friday, March 21, council meeting, passed the Town’s 2026-fiscal-year budget, with no increase in the property tax rate of $2.07 per $100 of assessed property value, but with a hike in the summer-season parking fee, to $4 per hour. The increase, Assistant Town Manager Teresa Tieman told the council, was necessary to “add to our reserves to
allow summer revenues to pay the Town’s expenses, so residents can still have free concerts.” “I think we did the right thing,” Mayor Ron Calef later told the Coastal Point about the increase. “Unfortunately, as costs go up, we’re trying to balance it so our residents and the businesses are not footing all the cost increases. If we reduce the water or reduce any of those things, it would fall back on the residents and they would have to pay more in property taxes, and they wouldn’t want that.
“We try to balance our summer costs with our summer revenues so the residents aren’t carrying the burden of everything going on in town when most of it is for tourists,” he said. “We add 150 summertime employees, so we try to balance it so those costs are offsetting the summer revenues. “Rehoboth has been at $4 an hour for parking for over a year, so we’re not out of play here. Dewey Beach is raising theirs to $4 this year. Ocean City is already at $4.50 an hour, so we certainly are not out of the realm of where we
should be,” Calef said, adding that summer events and activities support businesses and “bring people in and keep the town the vibrant atmosphere it has been and will continue to be.” During the town council meeting, Town Manager Cliff Graviet said that as COVID-19 pandemic-related operational changes ended, summer expenses were $4.9 million, and now they total $6.9 million. At the March 17 public hearing on See BUDGET page 3