Why Should Delaware Care?
The Police Athletic League of Delaware, which serves hundreds of children in New Castle County, is one of dozens of nonprofits that are regularly funded by taxpayers. Up until last year, it also was one of a handful of organizations led by a lawmaker. Today, its youth operations face issues after the state froze its latest round of grants.
The Police Athletic League of Delaware, a celebrated and taxpayer-funded nonprofit, is facing an upheaval after its prominent executive director – former House Speaker Valerie Longhurst – announced her resignation this month.
It is not immediately clear why Longhurst is leaving her post, but she does so just as the organization she had led for more than seven years faces a precarious financial future.
Two board members told Spotlight Delaware that the nonprofit’s cash reserves have dwindled recently, even after the group received a record $5 million from taxpayers in 2024, as well as hundreds of thousands more in 2025.
Exacerbating the financial precarity is the state’s decision last month to freeze more than $500,000 in additional grants that lawmakers awarded in June to the PAL of Delaware, as it is commonly known.
Rep. Kim Williams (D-Stanton), who serves as chair of the legislative committee that awarded a portion of the grants, said she pushed for a funding pause because of “inconsistent information,” provided by Longhurst to various Delaware officials regarding the amount of money the PAL had requested.
“There was confusion,” she said. “And so until I was able to figure out exactly what was going on, I thought it was best to pause the money.”
On July 15, Delaware’s Controller General Ruth Ann Miller sent Longhurst a letter stating that the PAL of Delaware needs to submit financial records to the state before any of the newly approved dollars could potentially be distributed.
Those records – some of which were delinquent – include copies of a recent audit, and of project-completion reports for nearly $4 million worth of taxpayer-funded construction going back to 2022.
On Friday – days after Spotlight Delaware began asking about its finances – the PAL of Delaware submitted financial reports to the state.
Still, the grants had not been unfrozen as of Monday, with Miller stating that her “office is still reviewing the reports received.”
Youth programs
Although they share a common name, the PAL of Delaware is a separate entity with separate governance from the Police Athletic League of Wilmington and the Police Athletic League of Dover.
But, like those other organizations, the PAL of Delaware operates athletic, arts and academic programs for children throughout the year. It does so at community center locations in Hockessin, Delaware City and suburban New Castle – settings that put children in contact with law enforcement as part of a founding principle “of building bridges between police officers and the communities they serve,” according to the PAL of Delaware website.
The nonprofit also has been an integral piece of Delaware’s political landscape, with elected officials regularly making public appearances at its locations.
And, up until last year, it also was one of several prominent Delaware organizations led by a state lawmaker.
That ended last September when Longhurst – then among the most powerful politicians in Delaware – surprisingly lost her seat representing the Bear area to now-Rep. Kamela Smith, a Democrat, after just a year in the top spot for the House.
Longhurst did not respond to requests to comment for this story.
For her part, Williams said she would like to see the PAL of Delaware’s youth operations placed back on track to get state money, noting that many of its school-related programs will resume with the start of the academic year.
But to do that effectively, she said, the organizations must appoint an interim executive director soon.
Sam Waltz, a member of the PAL of Delaware board of directors, said the board held a meeting on Monday and discussed a prospective candidate to serve as an interim executive director.
He said that person may be appointed by the end of this week.
‘Her tenure was done’
Spotlight Delaware spoke with several board members of the PAL of Delaware, who indicated that Longhurst’s resignation came as the organization was facing a lean financial future.
Still, board chairman Brian Moore said Longhurst was not asked to resign. He also said he didn’t believe Longhurst stepped down because of any financial precarity at the PAL of Delaware.
“Frankly, Val resigned because, at least what she told us was, it was time for her to move on. Her tenure was done,” he said.
Moore also stated that any financial issues facing the PAL of Delaware are common in the nonprofit sector during lean giving years, stating that “everybody has gotten less” recently from outside grant funders.
Though the PAL of Delaware may be facing a drought of private donations, it received substantial cash awards from the state, federal and county governments in recent years. Those include a $1.8 million federal subgrant award in 2024 that was distributed through then-Gov. John Carney’s office, according to Delaware’s Open Checkbook website.
Prior to the COVID pandemic, the organization regularly received about a half-million dollars or less from taxpayers each year, according to publicly available tax documents.
Despite big recent government awards, cash reserves at the organization have dwindled as officials used them to pay regular expenses, longtime board member Jeffrey Whitmarsh said.
Like Moore, Whitmarsh pointed to a tough environment for private gifts, saying the PAL has been “primarily grant driven, particularly since COVID.”
“We got to a point where the grants were pending and they [the reserves] were going in for salaries,” he said.
When asked about Longhurst’s requests in recent months to elected officials for funding, Witmarsh said he has not spoken with her about that. But he noted that part of nonprofit work is “about leveraging your contacts and hoping they can help you do good work.”
Asked if her value as an executive director was her role as a legislator, Whitmarsh said, “For me, no.”
After becoming executive director of the PAL of Delaware in 2018, Longhurst told the Daily State News that she did not find working as a legislator and as a leader of a taxpayer-funded nonprofit problematic.
“I don’t know if it’s a conflict of interest compared to anybody else that gets money through grant-in-aid and votes on bills,” she told the newspaper, referencing a Delaware legislative program that distributes money to nonprofits.
In 2017, the year before Longhurst became executive director, the PAL of Delaware recorded revenue of just over $1 million.
The organization’s most recent publicly available tax documents shows revenue in 2022 at $4.6 million. With about $5 million from taxpayer grants in 2024, revenue that year will be even higher, but exactly how much is not clear because tax documents for the period are not yet publicly available.
Delaware Insurance Commissioner Trinidad Navarro, who is also a PAL board member and former county sheriff, said in a statement that Longhurst’s resignation comes after “board concerns about how the PAL had been operated.”
“The PAL always has been and always will be about the children, making sure that they can play, learn, study, and kind of get to know and be comfortable with law enforcement,” Navarro’s spokesperson said.
Navarro did not respond to follow-up questions outlining those concerns.