Although the General Assembly passes hundreds of new pieces of legislation each session, it is constitutionally required to pass only one piece of legislation – Delaware’s Operating Budget. Coming in at $6.1 million, Delaware’s FY 2025 Operating Budget is 9.3% higher than last year’s budget. In addition to the Operating Budget, Delaware has two other budgets that are approved via legislation. The Grant-in-Aid Budget funds non-profits operating in the state with the perspective that they are performing work that would otherwise be performed by the state. The Capital Improvement Budget is the most important to the construction industry.

This year’s Capital Improvement Budget (SB 475) came in at $1.1 billion down from last year’s CIB at $1.4 billion. Below are the infrastructure investments prioritized and funded by the General Assembly for FY 2025:

$352.7 million to complete road projects statewide
$160 million for school construction projects
$9.1 million for school safety and security
$10 million for affordable housing
$37 million for economic development investment accounts
$27.7 million for clean drinking water revolving fund
$15.6 million for state park improvements
$7.6 million for beach and dredging work
$100 million for state facility deferred maintenance
$26 million for new Troop 4
$25 million for Kent and Sussex family courthouses

Following his 2018 Executive Order 21, Governor Carney has sought a budget smoothing approach to his annual recommended budget to dampen the impact of future downturns in the economy. Although Governor Carney was unsuccessful in passing an amendment to Delaware’s constitution to enshrine the budget smoothing approach, he was successful this year in passing SB 270 sponsored by Senator Paradee codifying the process. As described in SB 270’s synopsis, the legislation defines, “rules of deposits to and withdraws from the Budget Stabilization Fund and adding an objective and stable measure of sustainable budget growth through an advisory index comprised of certain State economic indicators.” As the economic cycle goes through its ups and downs, we can hope the Budget Stabilization Fund will help keep the state on an even keel.