Delaware counties
There are three counties in Delaware, the fewest of any state. The origin of the county boundaries go back to former court districts.
Each county elects its own legislative body. In New Castle and Sussex, this is known as the County Council, and in Kent County it is known as the Levy Court. The counties are able to raise taxes and borrow money. They also have control over garbage disposal, water supply, sewerage, zoning, development, and building codes.
The counties were historically divided into divisions called "hundreds", which were used as tax reporting and voting districts until the 1960s. However, the hundreds now serve no administrative role; their only current official legal use is in real-estate title descriptions.
[edit] County website evaluations
- Main article: Evaluation of Delaware county websites
- All three counties put their budgets online.
- All three include information on their websites about public government meetings.
- Kent provides extensive information about the county's elected officials, New Castle and Sussex less so.
- Each provides partial information about the county's administrative officials.
- New Castle and Sussex give information about permits and zoning; Kent does not.
- Kent and Sussex give no information about county audits; New Castle provides some information.
- None of the counties provide information about contracts with vendors.
- None of the counties discloses their membership (or lack thereof) in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations.
- Kent and Sussex provide no information on how to request public records using the Delaware Freedom of Information Act; New Castle provides some generally unclear information.
- Kent gives no information on county taxes, New Castle gives partial information, and Sussex gives fairly comprehensive information.
[edit] List of counties
| County | County seat |
|---|---|
| Kent County | Dover |
| New Castle County | Wilmington |
| Sussex County | Georgetown |
[edit] External links
This article was taken and modified from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under the GNU license.
| |||||
