A sure sign there won't be a tax hike in Delco

I can always tell when Delaware County officials are about to deliver a budget that DOES NOT include a tax hike.

It comes before Election Day, wrapped up in a nice press release from the county.

When that is not the case, when the numbers don't add up and the county is forced to hike taxes, getting the information is not quite as easy.

None of that probably matters to residents, who no doubt will be more than happy to learn that taxes are not going up next year, according to the preliminary budget released by the county yesterday.v And that is even without knowing exactly what is going to happen with that $4.3 million the county always banks on from Harrah's casino. That money is now in limbo while the Legislature works to fix a formula in the casinos' host-city agreement that a court knocked down as unconstitutional.

In the meantime, most of the talk yesterday at the courthouse was not about the budget, but instead about potential voter fraud.

U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan and county Republican Chairman Andy Reilly joined other GOP officials for a press conference at which they vowed to question thousands of recent Democratic voter registrations done by a group called FieldWorks LLC. The firm's office in Norwood just happened to be hit by investigators this week. Last night another office in Philly was raided.

A court hearing will be held in Media this morning to determine how many - if any - of those voter registrations should be tossed.

We'll be there to tell you what happens.

Repeat after me.

Four more days!

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