By Todd Shepherd
Delaware County spent $4.69 million on outside attorneys in 2024, according to an analysis of documents obtained via Right to Know request — more than eleven times higher than 2019, the last full year that category of spending was under Republican control. The 2024 figure is a record high for outside counsel spending, surpassing the previous record set in 2023.
The total shows that while the rate of increase in that category has leveled out, there are as yet no signs that the county intends to lower that spending so that it would be more commensurate with earlier years or with what neighboring counties spend.
Additionally, the increase in outside spending has not resulted in any interior savings. According to the county’s 2024 budget, the line-item for the county solicitor’s office has skyrocketed from $1.64 million in 2020 to $3.99 million in 2024 — a 143 percent increase.
Why It Matters. This latest fact lands as the county is just four months away from its first county council election in the wake of a massive 24 percent tax increase levied on residents in December of last year that set off waves of public complaints. The 24 percent tax increase followed a five percent tax increase just one year earlier.
Those tensions were on display recently when Councilwoman Christine Reuther voted no on purchasing new electroshock weapons for the county’s park police. “I feel very stressed about voting no but … I’m going to feel stressed about laying people off or cutting benefits or cutting services,” Reuther said earlier this month.
The Democrats who campaigned for council seats in 2017 and 2019 and then into the early years of this decade promised to create a county health department as well as to deprivatize the county prison, which had previously been privately run for almost 30 years.
After winning a majority, they delivered on those promises, but many residents are left wondering if the changes were worth the expense, especially after the mammoth 24 percent tax increase last year. The increase was a stunning reversal on pledges to keep taxes level from council members like Brian Madden.
For example, as Broad + Liberty previously reported, In 2021, the prison’s total bill for outside legal help was $125,375. By 2024, that bill climbed to $967,598.
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