Page 16 - Delaware Lawyer - Fall 2021

FEATURE
Delaware’s Budget Today
Danielle Gibbs
Balancing
A modern application of the budget provisions in the Delaware Constitution
I. Introduction
The state budget impacts every Delawarean. Yet, the development of the budget, particularly in the last several years, may not be well understood by those outside the process. The limitations of Delaware’s Constitutional framework for budgeting, in place for more than 40 years, have become increasingly clear over the last 20.
One is that expenditures are not suf- ficiently linked to revenues. Until re- cently, years of increasing expenditures in the face of modest revenue growth had left Delaware with large, structural bud- get gaps projected to continue for years. Within the last decade, however, public officials have developed and applied new fiscal controls that operate in concert with the state’s existing Constitutional frame- work to restrict budget growth to reason- able and sustainable levels.
II. The Constitution’s Fiscal Framework
Article VIII of the Constitution of 1897 established the state’s system of rev- enue and taxation.1 Section 6 of Article VIII (“Section 6”) provides the frame- work for preparing the state budget — the annual estimate of revenues and expenses. Subsections (b) through (d) of Section 6 were adopted in 1980, amid significant economic and financial turmoil.
Section 6(b) of Article VIII (“Subsec- tion (b)”) is a balanced budget provision,
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