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From the Desk of Executive Director Bryon Short

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From the Desk of Executive Director Bryon Short - February 2, 2024


The first month of the Delaware General Assembly session is only three weeks long. It is followed by six weeks of legislators performing the beginning work of marking up the coming year’s operating budget. The three actions that typically occur during the month of January are a reassignment of current year capital project funding through what is called the mini-bond bill, the governor’s State-of-the-State address and the governor’s recommended budget for the next fiscal year. Unlike last year’s mini-bond bill, this year’s mini-bond bill, SB 225, does not contain controversial elements but rather follows the historical use of the legislation to simply reallocate funding to other projects. Governor Carney was sick for the scheduled State-of-the-State speech delaying it to March 5. Although Delaware’s revenues are projected to be stable for the coming fiscal year, Governor Carney’s FY 2025 budget proposal is informed by the Delaware Financial and Advisory Committee’s declining revenue projections in the out years.

Last week, Governor Carney presented his FY 2025 budget proposal. The budget, as presented on January 25th, recommends a General Fund Operating Budget of $6,074.9 billion along with a Capital Improvement budget of $943.7 million. Following several years of historic Capital Improvement Budgets, this year’s recommendation is a 32% decrease over last year’s Capital Improvement Budget. Other areas of the budget also received reductions in funding over the prior year budget recommendations.

Below I want to share with you some of the elements of the budget proposal that I think would be of interest to DCA’s membership.

  • $24.7 million Shoreline and Waterway Resiliency
  • $32.8 million Clean Water Trust
  • $12.5 million Strategic Fund Investments
  • $10.0 million Site Readiness Fund
  • $10.0 million Suburban Roads/Subdivision Street Paving
  • $5.0 million Graduation Lab Space
  • $5.0 million Transportation Infrastructure Investment Fund
  • $169.5 million School construction and Renovation
  • $30 million Higher Education Campus Improvements
  • $18.3 million School Building Deferred Maintenance
  • $6.5 million Libraries
  • $25 million Kent/Sussex Family Court Facilities
  • $26 million Delaware State Police Troop 4
  • $17.7 million Statewide Correctional Facility and Safety Improvements
  • $20 million Williams Justice Center Improvements
  • $10 million Customs House
  • $37.3 million Minor Capital improvement and deferred maintenance
  • $22 million Bissell/Forensic Science facility construction
  • $12 million Statewide Park improvements
  • $6 million Carvel State Office Building upgrades



There’s a long way between the governor’s proposed FY 2025 budget and the General Assembly’s passage of the state’s three budgets (Operating, Capital, and Grant-in-Aid). Over the intervening months, DEFAC will meet several times and make revenue projection adjustments based upon their interpretation of the data. We are coming into an interesting time. With so many members of the General Assembly having only served during periods of historic revenues, many will face for the first time decreasing revenue projections.

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