It Costs Money to Move Money: Delaware's $79 Million in Fees

Buried in Delaware's checkbook is a category most people will never look for: “Late charges, other interest and service charges.” Since FY2018 it adds up to $64.2 million — and it has roughly tripled, from $3.7 million in FY2018 to $11.7 million in FY2026, the worst year on record. Add the state's separate bank fees line — $14.8 million over the same stretch, up more than 40-fold — and Delaware has paid about $79 million just for the plumbing of moving its own money.

Late charges, interest & service charges vs. bank fees, FY2018–FY2026. Source: State of Delaware Checkbook.

Where the fees pile up

This is not, mostly, a story about the state forgetting to pay its bills. The category is a bundle — late charges, other interest, and service charges share one accounting bucket — and the two departments that dominate it point to a more mundane culprit: transaction costs. $45.1 million traces to the Department of State, whose Division of Corporations processes filings and franchise payments for more than a million business entities, most of them paid by card or wire — the kind of volume where processing costs and interest on refunds add up fast. Another $19.1 million comes from the Department of Transportation, whose toll operation runs on the same rails. Every other department combined is a rounding error.

The bank-fees line tells the same story in miniature: $68,000 in FY2018, about $3 million a year now — a 40-fold increase during a period when total state spending grew 66%.

The honest caveats

Because the state lumps late charges, interest and service charges into a single category, the checkbook alone can't say precisely how much was avoidable — a merchant fee is a cost of doing business; a late charge is a choice. What the data does show clearly: the cost of moving Delaware's money is growing much faster than the money itself, and nobody itemizes it for the public. (The adjacent “Toll Fees” category — $82 million, nearly all of it since FY2022 — deserves its own explanation from DelDOT.)

Check it yourself

Query the State of Delaware Checkbook for categories “LATE CHG-AL OTR/INT-SV CHG” and “BANK FEES,” or start from the checkbook explorer.