Why should Delaware care?
Delaware’s annual bond bill funds major capital projects such as road improvements, new schools and modernized state facilities. There are also often a number of other issues that raise eyebrows. But part of his surprise this year comes from where the money comes from, not where it goes.
Delaware’s capital budget, unveiled last week with a series of costly construction projects, relies heavily on a pot of money derived from unused gift cards, forgotten stock dividends and other types of abandoned property previously held by companies around the world.
Despite being a unique way in Delaware to finance public works projects — including an expansion of the Port of Wilmington — the unclaimed real estate program is facing increasing legal scrutiny. In March, a federal judge noted that the only thing clear about the Delaware fund was its ambiguity.
Lawmakers publicly released the $1.26 billion bond bill Thursday evening, giving the public just days to consider the spending plan before an expected vote on Tuesday — the final day of the legislative session.
If passed, the bill would draw more than a quarter of its funding from Delaware’s practice of collecting unclaimed assets from companies legally based in the state.
The rest would come from the state’s general fund, bond sales and a transportation trust fund.
The 103-page bill contains numerous spending items, including traditional funding for roads, parks and school buildings.
There are also several one-time expenses, including $110 million for cost overruns on the Port of Wilmington expansion; $35 million to renovate the Parliament building; $30 million for the state to purchase a marina and parking garage; and $17 million to cover unforeseen renovation costs at a downtown Wilmington office building.
Delaware quietly acquired the Alpha Technologies building in downtown Wilmington in 2024 and subsequently committed $18 million to the renovation. Two years later, the company committed another $17 million to the renovation. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY KARL BAKER
The bill also includes $1 million for renovations at The Queen, a music venue in Wilmington owned by a nonprofit organization.
Asked why lawmakers were providing money for the private venue, Senate Democratic spokeswoman Sarah Fulton said the facility draws people to downtown Wilmington, which benefits surrounding restaurants and hotels. She described it as a venue that “puts Delaware on the map.”
Beyond construction spending, the bond bill also includes several policy directives. Among them is a permit for the Delaware Department of Correction to demolish a closed work release facility and transfer it to the Wilmington Housing Authority for $1.
Corrections officials closed the facility earlier this year despite objections from former inmates, Wilmington-area politicians and prison advocates who said the closure would force inmates to live further from their jobs and families as they return to society.
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Cheat now, cheat later?
Notable in this year’s bond bill is the state’s reliance on a one-time $328 million appropriation resulting from Delaware’s practice of collecting unclaimed or abandoned property.
The process, called escheatment, is based on a precedent dating back to medieval England that allows government officials to recover dollars or other assets they believe have gone unclaimed by their rightful owners.
Because of Delaware’s unique role as the legal home of more than a million businesses, the state’s collection of these funds funds an outsized portion of government operations. In recent years the amount has exceeded $400 million.
However, some of that money also goes into a separate fund that the state keeps in reserve to settle so-called extraordinary claims from its unclaimed real estate operations. This fund is called the Escheat special fund.
“We had unusual revenue from the trust special fund and were able to allocate that in kind to the port and schools,” Fulton said.
Delaware Comptroller General Ruth Ann Miller also noted during a Legislative Committee hearing last week that a “significant balance” of unclaimed real estate funds would allow the state to pay for public school construction projects that have been delayed in recent years.
“We’ve heard a lot about districts being turned down for (construction),” she said.
While state officials pointed to the increase in tax revenue, the long-term viability of relying on those dollars could be at risk.
Delaware attorneys were given a deadline Thursday to file a response to demands to disclose details about the trust fund used to finance the bond bill. Thursday’s deadline is part of a lawsuit filed in 2024 that aims to upend the way Delaware collects unclaimed real estate revenue.
The lawsuit, filed as a class action lawsuit, specifically challenges the “constitutionality of Delaware’s trust system set forth in the Unclaimed Property Law.”
The lawsuit follows a separate legal challenge to the collection of unclaimed Moneygram checks in Delaware, which was resolved in 2024.
As part of that settlement, Delaware paid $102 million to several other states that had argued that the aggressive collection of those checks was unlawful.
A problematic port expansion
Around the time of the Moneygram settlement, Delaware officials under the Carney administration were preparing to transfer $195 million from the unclaimed real estate pot to spur an expansion of the Port of Wilmington through the construction of a new container terminal along the Delaware River at Edgemoor.
For a decade, port expansion has been a goal of state officials, who said a new container facility could bring thousands of new jobs to the Wilmington area.
Delaware officials plan to use an additional $110 million from the state to close a funding gap for their ambitious but controversial plan to build a new port in Edgemoor. | IMAGE COURTESY OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
However, plans for the development have been plagued by obstacles and mistakes by port officials in the past. They also faced opposition from regional ports in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as Edgemoor residents concerned about the environmental impact.
Most recently, port officials announced in April that the state would have to pay an additional $110 million to cover its share of the updated planned cost of the new port terminal.
At the time, Delaware Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez refused to disclose where the state would get the money from — even after officials signed a contract to provide the new dollars for the project. It is not immediately clear whether her reluctance was due to the lawsuit challenging the state’s unclaimed property program.
Still, Patibanda-Sanchez finally revealed the source of the money to lawmakers during a committee hearing last week. In her remarks, she defended Delaware’s decision to expand the port, saying the current Christina River facility would become obsolete in the face of expansions by competing regional ports.
“Unfortunately, if we don’t compete to allow containers, our port will be forgotten,” she said.
Read more from Spotlight Delaware
https://spotlightdelaware.org/2026/06/29/controversial-pot-of-money-will-fund-delawares-port-expansion-other-construction-projects/
