Why Should Delaware Care?
The Port of Wilmington is one of the last places in Delaware that provides well-paying, blue-collar jobs. State politicians have also been divided recently over who should oversee its operations, a debate that has emerged as the first political power struggle of 2025.
After Delaware’s governor and lawmakers jockeyed over control of the Port of Wilmington, the state’s independent auditor announced Friday that her office would open an investigation into the Diamond State Port Corporation – the state-owned entity that oversees the port facility and directs its $635 million expansion plans.
The probe – called a performance audit – will scrutinize Port Corporation operations more thoroughly than the auditor’s standard financial audit, and could include interviews with current or former board members of the entity, including former-Secretary of State Jeffrey Bullock.
Specifically, the investigation will examine the Port Corporation’s recent handling of hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars that have been committed to fund construction of a new container terminal at the site of a former chemical plant in Edgemoor, State Auditor Lydia York said in an interview with Spotlight Delaware.
The long-delayed Edgemoor project has been hampered in past years by financial chaos at the Port of Wilmington and by opposition from neighbors and competing ports in Philadelphia and New Jersey.
Its problems continued last fall after a federal judge revoked a key permit needed to dredge a shipping lane in the Delaware River to the site of the planned port terminal.
Delaware officials push forward
Despite the judge’s ruling, state officials pressed on with their plans, and in late December formalized an agreement with the Port of Wilmington’s new private operator, Enstructure, to share the costs of building the $635 million port facility.
Two weeks after the agreement, state officials expedited a transfer of nearly $200 million to the Diamond State Port Corporation to be used for the construction of Edgemoor.
The transfer occurred five days before Gov. Matt Meyer’s inauguration, during former-Gov. Bethany Hall-Long’s two-week tenure as the state’s top elected official.
Internal state emails obtained by Spotlight Delaware show one finance director telling his staff to “expedite” the bulk of the money transfer. He said on Jan. 16 that the transfer needed to be done ASAP, adding that questions about interest the money had earned could be dealt with “next week.”
While it is not immediately clear why there was a rush to move the money during the week before Meyer’s inauguration, state senators have recently complained that the new governor has not made his plans for Edgemoor clear.
York said she decided to conduct the performance audit after learning about the money transfer, which she described as a “big, big number” that nearly doubled the size of the state’s historic investment in the Port of Wilmington.
Though then-Gov. John Carney officially announced the appropriation last spring, York said she found it odd that the transfer occurred rapidly last month, and that the money was moved all at once.
She said she was alerted to the transfer in late January by her staff who were startled by a $200 million sum being moved so quickly.
“That’s when I said, ‘Well, you know, that’s all very interesting. There’s a new administration that ought to be aware,’ because it seems odd that kind of money was running through the system at that point,” she said.
During her interview with Spotlight Delaware, York, an independently elected Democrat, said she believed that the Edgemoor project is in the interest of everyone in Delaware, but argued that its development should be “less opaque than in the prior years.”
Port becoming central fight
Her office’s announcement comes two weeks after a political fight erupted between Delaware’s governor and lawmakers over oversight of the Port of Wilmington.
Specifically, the two sides are at odds over whether individuals nominated last month by Hall-Long to serve on the board of the Port Corporation can serve in those positions despite Meyer’s assertion that he had subsequently withdrawn them from senate consideration.
The Delaware Supreme Court is currently evaluating the question of whether Meyer can withdraw the nominations – which include Bullock, the Port Corporation’s longtime chair – or whether he can refuse to commission them if they are confirmed by the Senate.
In a statement sent to Spotlight Delaware, Meyer spokesman Nick Merlino said the governor is “committed to both creating good-paying union jobs and transparency.” He also said the Edgemoor project currently is “unauthorized to move forward,” and state’s money for it “was transferred to the port days before his inauguration.”
Neither Meyer “nor his Secretary of State nominee was engaged at all on a massive agreement signed in late December that puts the state on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars,” Merlino added
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