Milford City Council, for the first time in recent history, held a fourth night of budget hearings in order to hear options to address concerns expressed by Police Chief Cecilia Ashe regarding pay for lieutenants and captains. Those positions are not unionized but did receive a 27 percent pay raise last year and have a proposed 14 percent increase in this year’s budget. During the public comment portion of the meeting, Julie Morris, who comments at every council meeting, expressed concerns about salaries.
“Comparing the police wages to Smyrna, I just can’t believe how low they’re being paid,” Morris said. “And on top of that having the supervisor’s pay so much more is pretty significant in my eyes, especially when you are thinking about having Mark Whitfield make $150 an hour, not including all the other expenses that he listed, because of course, he wants to get paid for that as well. And also paying the new city manager $195,000. I just don’t see how anyone could possibly say this budget is conservative, because you are literally spending all city of Milford people’s money and not based on what they wanted. The survey that you guys are supposed to uphold is the safety, utilities, those are the top two right there, so you should not look to land acquisition and a park.”
Research into what Smyrna pays a police lieutenant found that on average, they make $53,145 per year in that town while a Milford police lieutenant makes an average of $91,338. In addition, the survey Morris referenced was conducted by POLCO and actually found that residents feel the quality of safety and the economy were excellent or good, while opportunities for parks and recreation needed improvement. The survey was clear that respondents wanted to see more parks, playgrounds, bike trails, pedestrian paths and sporting courts. Morris also stated that the budget included $500,000 for land acquisition when that was actually included over the next five years in the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) which is not a budget but a guide for staff.
“I want to respond to something that was said during public comment,” Councilman Dan Marabello said. “We do not have $500,000 set aside in the budget for land acquisition.”
City Finance Director Lou Vitola began the discussion about the budget with a recommendation to transfer an additional $311,000 from electric reserves to meet a small budget deficit. This would bring the transfer up to the recommended 12.5 percent. Councilwoman Madula Kalesis questioned if it was better to remove projects from the budget than to transfer from electric reserves.
“If there are projects that are going to rely on general fund reserves and those projects are delayed or deferred or completely eliminated, then we would not have to do this,” Vitola said. “However, I would stress that finding funds like that is a one-time solution. This, in a way, is a one-time solution as well because the electric fund outperformed in 2025, but we generally treat the recurring source of funds into the general fund as an augmentation of something we already do annually.”
Mayor Todd Culotta asked what the city had done over the past five years and Vitola explained that five years ago, the transfer was $2.5 million, and this year would be $3.75 million.
“Talk about discussions getting pretty difficult in this room,” Culotta said, referencing comments made earlier in the evening by Councilwoman Katrina Wilson. “That’s what we’re voted here to do. Scrutinizing the budget at every level is okay, and just because it doesn’t agree with the direction maybe you would like it to go, it’s okay to have these discussions. It’s okay for it to be difficult, but each year we are spending more and more and we, as elected officials, should know this budget inside and out to see where we can be more cost-effective.
Wilson agreed with Culotta.
“We answer to the voters, and it’s their tax money that funds this, so I have a problem when everyone plays feel good politics and says “oh, this would be nice to have,” but how do you pay for it,” Culotta stated. “That’s the homework we need to do. That’s how I feel about that.”
Wilson pointed out that costs rise and those meant adjustments had to be made. Culotta stated that the city budget had to be managed just like a home budget, cutting one area when another area increased.
“If you are directing that at me, I am telling you I agree with you,” Wilson said. “I’m not in disagreement, and I am very proud to say that we have a balanced budget every year that I’ve been here, and we’ve had some dark days. I am very proud of the finance department and their management.”
Culotta stated that the city had gone from transferring $2.5 million to $3.75 million over five years, expressing concerns that it would be $4.3 million the next year.
“So, Lou, like Madula was saying, if there are some projects that are not completed, we can put that back in the budget?” Wilson asked.
Vitola explained that projects that had not begun could be put aside, but once a project was underway, there were contractual obligations that would need to be met. He stated that there was not a huge list of projects that had not begun that could be eliminated.
“I think one of the other things the finance department and other directors, along with the new city manager, could do is focus on diversification in terms of income,” Whitfield said. “I’ll give you some examples. One was in my memo about doing some sort of stormwater utility that would help take some of that pressure off of the general fund and put it more toward a utility that, again, there would be a payment that would be made for those that have a lot of impervious area that caused the runoff and caused us to spend a lot of money.”
Whitfield also suggested taking a look at our business licenses, where small businesses pay the same fee as a larger company like Walmart.
“What we try to do from a staff perspective is to do as much as what you folks want us to do and then find the resources,” Whitfield said. “Lou has been great at finding those resources and how to pay for projects. From my standpoint, it is what council wants us to do. Yes, you have decisions to be made. Sometimes you cannot do them all.”
Kalesis pointed out that in her review of the CIP, which is not a budget, there were two projects listed as medium priority that were almost $5 million. Both were bridge repairs. Whitfield stated that those were not medium priority but high priority and Kalesis stated it did not say that on the CIP. Vitola stated that was a mistake as the bridges were high priority.
“We have already committed to DelDOT that we’re doing that project. And 80 percent is being paid through federal bridge replacement funding,” Whitfield said. “The one on Maple Street is already starting to what they call scissor underneath and really needs to be replaced. The next one is by the old fire hall on Southwest Front, and I just hope there is not a truck on there someday that is overweight as it could collapse.”
Kalesis again stated that she didn’t see why those could not be deferred to next year with signage placed with a weight limit.
“Again, we have already signed an agreement with DelDOT for that,” Whitfield said.
Wilson questioned if these bridges were the ones featured in a story by WBOC. Kalesis still felt weight limit signage would allow the project to be deferred. Whitfield stated that there were already weight limit signs on the bridges, yet he constantly followed school buses, who were well over that limit, across the bridge.
After that discussion, where no decision was made as this was a workshop, several options were presented that would allow the city to meet the request of Chief Cecilia Ashe to increase salaries for non-union police officers. The first option would require the elimination of a salary study for $59,200 but would not include an increase for the officers.
“The second option would be to eliminate the staffing study and the membership in Kent County Economic Partnership,” Vitola explained. “We would also reduce council expenses by $10,000, reduce the police ammunition and weaponry by $20,000, officer overtime by $7,000 and civilian overtime by $6,850.”
A memo provided by Mark Whitfield recommended not increasing the police salaries and basing all salaries on the recommendations of Evergreen, a company that conducted a salary study earlier this year. His recommendation was to use the original budget as presented at the first budget hearing.
“Increasing the pay grade is not supported by the consultant, places the lowest paid lieutenant at a higher pay than all but two department directors, places the lieutenants at the same pay grade as four department directors, places the captain at a higher pay than all department directors and places the captain at a higher pay step then four department directors,” Whitfield’s memo read.
Another memo attached to the recommendation indicated that if the salary increases requested by Ashe were approved, a captain in Milford’s police force would make $162,952 a year and the lowest-ranking lieutenant $143,824 a year and the highest-ranking would make $152,582. Brad Dennehy, Parks and Recreation Director, will be paid $138,711 per year while Willis Shafer, Public Works Director, will make $136,470 per year. The increase could lead to a domino effect as the director salaries would need to be increased and, to maintain the $10,000 gap between grades, Ashe’s salary may also need to be increased.
“I have a question about the [tax] increase,” Councilwoman Madula Kalesis said. “This was something that was approved five years ago, but we can always change it if we need to do that. I know it is only one cent, but I want to make sure the public knows we don’t have to sign this resolution. But this is not a new tax, it was already adopted five years ago.”
Whitfield again explained that the one-cent increase provided the final $500,000 in the budget that council agreed was necessary five years before to reduce reliance on realty transfer tax funds as those are volatile and unreliable.
“We don’t need to adopt this. I want people to understand that we can say we don’t need that $500,000 right now,” Kalesis said. “We would just need to find $500,000 in the budget.”
Mayor Todd Culotta stated that this was approved by council, and it was the right thing to do five years ago. At the time, council was relying on RTT funding which was a slippery slope as if the real estate market collapsed, RTT funds would not be available.
“Relying on RTT funding to balance the budget is dangerous as you can always defer a project,” Whitfield said. “You don’t want to not pay employees or lay employees off because you lost that income. So, our goal was to eliminate RTT and not rely on it for operating.”
Kalesis brought up the beautification of City Hall.
“We have $150,000 that is supposed to go into City Hall, and I’m going to keep bugging about City Hall and that $150,000,” Kalesis said. “Is a penny a lot of money? No, but you tell people they are paying a penny more because we want to beautify City Hall and make it nice and pretty. This is just a thought but what if we took that $150,000 to beautify City Hall and remove this penny from property taxes and revisit it again next year.”
“I do understand what the councilwoman is saying and I’m in line, but the penny is so we don’t end up in situations where other municipalities have ended up,” Councilman Jason James said. “You have a cost that goes up, whether it is wages or cost of services, what have you, and then we find ourselves going to the taxpayer and saying we need to raise your taxes more than a penny, maybe five cents. So, we did it a penny at a time, so we didn’t have to go out for a big ask while still keeping up with inflation.”
James thanked the finance team for coming up with options to address the chief’s concern. He also thanked the chief for making cuts to her own budget that would allow for the increases. After the discussion about the budget, Culotta presented the Capital Improvement Plan but pointed out that since this was a workshop, there was no vote.
“Shouldn’t there be some direction where this budget is headed?” Councilwoman Lori Connor said. “As far as option one and option two, because we’re going to approve the budget at the next meeting. What data is it going to have? Is it going to have option one or two because there is a big difference of $123,000. I know we cannot vote tonight, but there has to be some direction on what budget is going to be presented at the next meeting.”
Culotta stated that both would be presented at the next meeting.
“Okay, because I don’t want to get within three hours of the next meeting and have one budget and it doesn’t reflect what we talked about,” Connor said. “I think we need option choices available.
