Why Should Delaware Care?
The bond bill is a massive, billion-dollar capital budget the General Assembly passes each June that taxpayers will help to repay over a decade. The details of specific items within the bond bill are often unclear, as the legislature negotiates the capital budget amid its annual end-of-session rush.
While Delaware’s two largest cities will receive roughly $23 million from the state’s omnibus capital budget this year, smaller municipalities will receive no money at all.
And that funding disparity is not abnormal.
A Spotlight Delaware analysis found that lawmakers in recent years have poured hundreds of millions of tax dollars into construction and redevelopment projects in Wilmington and Dover through Delaware’s bond bill, often allocating much less for initiatives in the state’s smaller communities.
Much of the money doled out to Delaware’s largest cities flows through public entities and private nonprofits like Wilmington’s Riverfront Development Corporation and the Downtown Dover Partnership — organizations working to revitalize the downtown cores of the state’s largest and capital cities, respectively, through multi-year master plans.
But money in the bond bill – the state’s annual budget to fund construction and development projects through the issuance of long-term debt – can also be allocated directly to local governments, along with nonprofits or corporations.
And while other municipal projects, like “economic development” in Seaford or “community initiatives” in Newark, have sporadically received capital dollars in recent years, the Riverfront Development Corporation and Downtown Dover Partnership are unmatched in the consistent stream of funding they receive from the bond bill each year.
The result, some local leaders said, is having to apply for grants and seek out private investment — which can be an uphill battle.
Lorissa McAllister, director of the Laurel Redevelopment Corporation, described having to be “very financially responsible,” in order to fund her organization’s projects with limited state support.
For Rep. Bill Bush (D-Dover), who sits on the legislature’s Joint Capital Improvement Committee tasked with putting together the bond bill each year, the difference in funding decisions comes down to how organizations vocalize their financial needs.
“A master plan helps, but you have to communicate it, too,” he said.
How do Wilmington, Dover spend bond bill funds?
Over the past five years, the General Assembly has appropriated roughly $45 million to the Riverfront Development Corporation and $21 million to the Downtown Dover Partnership, according to the Controller General’s office, which oversees legislative finances.
Those distributions often come with relatively few stipulations as to how the funds can be spent.
In this year’s bond bill, Wilmington’s Riverfront Development Corporation received $11.5 million, and the Downtown Dover Partnership received $5 million — amounts that are on par with allocations in recent years.
Megan McGlinchey, director of Wilmington’s Riverfront Development Corporation, gave a presentation to the Joint Capital Improvement Committee in April to explain her organization’s funding request.
She argued the economic returns the redevelopment of Wilmington’s riverfront provides to the city and the state in the form of new jobs and tourism far outweighs the money government officials have invested in the project.
When asked by Spotlight Delaware how the corporation will spend its $11.5 million, McGlinchey said the sum will fund renovations at the Chase Convention Center, a new park next to a luxury apartment complex, beginnings of a new mixed use development project on the east side of the Christina River and updates to the Blue Rocks baseball stadium, among a laundry list of other projects.
The city of Wilmington was separately allocated $7.1 million for the opaque purpose of “city of Wilmington initiatives.”
A spokesperson for Mayor John Carney’s office said this will translate to $1 million for improvements to city-owned golf courses, $3 million for improvements to parks such as Brown Burton Winchester Park and HB Dupont Plaza, and $2 million to acquire vacant properties through the city’s land bank.
The Queen, a well-known concert venue in downtown Wilmington owned by the Buccini Pollin Group, was also given $1 million for building renovations through a so-called “Cultural Access Fund.” The bond bill describes the fund as aimed at enhancing the “quality and availability of Delaware’s recreational and cultural offerings.”
The Downtown Dover Partnership did not present to the Joint Capital Improvement Committee about its funding request this year.
However, Bush, whose district encompasses the downtown Dover area, said the committee has a clear idea of the Downtown Dover Partnership’s long-term master plan, so committee members were inclined to fund the organization.
“In my mind, it’s a great investment,” he said.
The partnership’s Executive Director Diane Laird said its $5 million will go toward its Capital City 2030 plan. The primary projects in the master plan are a “mobility center” parking garage and a 120-unit apartment complex in downtown Dover.
Laird told Spotlight Delaware she cannot provide a breakdown of how much will be spent on specific projects because “funds will be used in concert with other public/private funds to ensure projects come to completion.”
The city of Dover has also received multi-million dollar sums from the bond bill in conjunction with the Downtown Dover Partnership in recent years to make wastewater improvements necessary for the downtown project, Laird said, but the city was not allocated those additional funds for FY27.
Redevelopment projects elsewhere
While Wilmington and Dover often receive more than other localities, redevelopment initiatives in other communities around the state also are eligible to receive capital improvement money.
The Riverfront Development Corporation is a public entity, created by a task force of then-Gov. Tom Carper and the General Assembly in 1995. The Downtown Dover Partnership is a private nonprofit with some elected officials on its governing board.
A spokesperson for the Controller General’s office told Spotlight Delaware public entities like the Riverfront Development Corporation, local governments and nonprofit organizations or corporations are all equally able to receive bond bill funds.
Nonetheless, local redevelopment initiatives outside of the state’s two largest cities are frequently left out of bond bill appropriations.
The Laurel Redevelopment Corporation, a nonprofit focused on revitalization around the Broad Creek riverfront in Laurel, did not receive any bond dollars this year.
The organization has sporadically been allocated funding over the past decade, but it has not been given a bond bill appropriation since 2019, according to the Controller General’s office.
The Laurel Redevelopment Corporation has a number of ongoing capital improvement projects, such as a workforce housing development and a park along the creek.
McAllister, the organization’s director, said her group must rely on a combination of grants and private investment, while hoping the state might decide to provide the group funds in future years.
Seaford has also been working on a downtown revitalization project, which includes a riverwalk along the Nanticoke River and transforming the former Nylon Capital Center into a coworking space. City Manager Charles Anderson said Seaford has not received bond bill dollars since 2024, when it was allocated $1.3 million for a combination of different “economic development” projects.
Lauren Swain, Milford’s economic development director, said her city, too, has a redevelopment concept called the “Rivertown Rebirth Master plan,” which has not received any state funding in recent years.
While Bush emphasized that redevelopment organizations need to effectively communicate their plans to the General Assembly in order to receive bond bill funds, he also suggested groups seek out other funding sources, like the state’s Downtown Development District program.
Downtown Development Districts
An additional avenue for local redevelopment funding exists in the form of Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA)’s Downtown Development Districts program, which offers state dollars and other financial incentives for residential and commercial projects within a specified area of participating cities and towns.
Still, these funds tend to skew toward larger cities, organizers said.
DSHA received $10 million in bond bill funding for the Downtown Development District program this year.
A dozen towns or cities currently participate in the program, and the state is planning to add three more districts this fall.
Wilmington, Milford and Dover were the top three users of the program’s funding in the 2025 fiscal year, receiving $5.4 million, $838,000 and $541,000 in rebates, respectively.
Smaller municipalities like Georgetown and Harrington fell to the bottom of the list, only receiving around $100,000 in state investment, respectively.
DSHA Director Matt Heckles said the unequal distribution of the program’s funds between communities is something his agency frequently “wrestles with.”
Heckles said the housing authority recently changed the scoring process of developer applications for one of its rebate programs in an effort to ensure funding is equitably distributed.
Still, he said, the challenge is that projects in Wilmington tend to be much larger than in other communities, translating to more money being allocated.
While Heckles said his agency is continually focused on ways to make participation in the Downtown Development District program equitable, he argued that it is “apples to oranges” to compare the amount of funding between Wilmington and Milford, for example, because a $2 million project would have a substantially greater impact in Milford.
