By Glenn Rolfe

MILLSBORO — Town of Millsboro property owners will see a slight increase in their tax bill for the coming fiscal year.

Included in the town’s FY2022 balanced budget adopted June 7 by mayor and council is an inflationary tax rate adjustment — a 2-cent increase.

For a home assessed at $250,000, the 2-cent rate increase will mean an additional $50 annually, according to town of Millsboro Finance Director Matt Hall.

Combined, the operating/capital budget totals $14.2 million.

The town’s fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30.

DelDOT updates

From information presented by Delaware Department of Transportation engineer Mark Lutz at the June 7 council meeting, resurfacing of Del. 24 — Main Street and Washington Street — is targeted for September, Millsboro Town Manager Sheldon Hudson said.

Also, in the downtown district, DelDOT plans to consider restriping on Washington Street and State Street for westbound traffic on Del. 24.

That tricky, sometimes tight turn of Del. 24 onto northbound State Street by tractor-trailers has resulted in incidents of property damage, most notably fencing surrounding the Williams House, the former home U.S. Sen. John J. Williams and his wife Elsie, now owned and managed as a conference center by Delaware Technical Community College.

Recently, Dr. Bobbi Barends, vice president/campus director at Del Tech’s Georgetown Owens Campus spoke during a council meeting. She said probably four times a year the corner fencing must be replaced because of “tractor-trailers cutting that area short.”

“We do own the Williams House property on that corner. We are looking to expand the conference center in the next year or so. We’re working on planning for that,” said Dr. Barends. “So, we really would like to not have the property continually be run over by trucks.”

One solution under consideration is to move the stop bar back for traffic on southbound State Street at that intersection. Conceivably, this would give big rigs more room to negotiate that corner.

“That hopefully will help with the tractor-trailer situation and the fence by the Williams House,” said Mr. Hudson. “They are trying to engineer that to hopefully cut down on that.”

In another DelDOT-related issue, the town expressed interest in signal phasing at the busy U.S. 113/Del. 24 intersection. This mode of phasing would allow an entire corner of the intersection to flow simultaneously, with straight and turning traffic moving at the same time frequency.

“Council likes the split phasing,” Mr. Hudson said. “DelDOT agreed to revisit that, based on council’s input.”