Despite property owner concerns that recent property reassessments would increase school taxes significantly, Milford School District Board of Education voted their tax warrants into effect on July 7, decreasing school taxes for the ninth straight year.
“The Kent County breakdown of our tax rate is operations $0.1929, debt service $0.0347, tuition $0.0260 and match tax $0.0097,” Scott Kessell, CFO for the district, said. “For Sussex County, operations are $0.1885, debt service $0.0369, tuition $0.0277 and match tax $0.0103. This comes to a tax rate per $100 of assessed value of $0.2633 in Kent and $0.2634 in Sussex.”
In 2024-25, the tax rate for Kent County was $0.02807 and for Sussex County $4.4556. Although the tax rates seemed to be significantly higher in Sussex that year, the difference was due to the lack of updated appraisals in Sussex County. The tax rate was set so that a house that was the exact same value in Kent would bring the same revenue to the district as one in Sussex.
With the new appraisals now completed in Kent and Sussex County, the district is able to implement taxes that are the same or at least close to the same, making it easier on property owners to understand.
State law allows each county to increase taxes by 15 percent after reassessment, but both Kent and Sussex announced they would lower their tax rates to keep the process revenue neutral. School districts are permitted to raise their property taxes by 10 percent on top of any additional added by the county, but Milford also chose to keep the process revenue neutral.
According to the Sussex County reassessment calculator, available by clicking here, a home in Milford School District with an assessed value of $300,000 would have an estimated property tax of around $1,018.50 per year. In Kent County, the estimated tax is $1200.00.
