JobsFirst
Focusing on Delaware’s Housing, Energy, Broadband, and Infrastructure
Faster decisions. Stronger communities. Putting JobsFirst!
JobsFirst is Governor Meyer’s commitment to cut the red tape slowing down Delaware’s housing, energy, broadband, and infrastructure — without cutting the safety or environmental standards that protect our communities.
For too long, Delawareans have watched projects that could have created jobs, built homes, and powered communities get stuck in a permitting process that can take two years or more. Not because the projects weren’t worthy. Not because environmental standards couldn’t be met. Because the system wasn’t designed to move.
JobsFirst changes that.
Launched through Executive Order 18, JobsFirst is reforming Delaware’s permitting systems starting with the accelerator initiative to make government work at the speed of the economy. It coordinates state agencies around shared timelines, puts a single point of contact in front of every major project, and tracks every decision publicly so anyone can see whether we are delivering on our promises.
JobsFirst is not about cutting corners. Our environmental protections, public health standards, and community participation rights are fully preserved. What we are cutting is unnecessary delay — the sequential reviews that could run in parallel, the forms that could be one form, the clocks that nobody was watching.
Delaware families need more housing. Delaware businesses need reliable, affordable energy. Delaware communities need broadband and clean water. JobsFirst is how we build it — faster, smarter, and together.
Welcome. Let’s get to work.
How the Accelerator Program Works
JobsFirst accelerates Delaware’s old sequential, siloed permitting process — which could stretch 18 to 24 months — with a coordinated, parallel, time-bound system built around four core commitments.
- Apply to the program
- Using the link on this page, apply to JobsFirst for priority project designation. What Is a JobsFirst Priority Project? A JobsFirst Priority Project is a project that meets objective, defined criteria demonstrating meaningful public benefit — and in exchange for that benefit, receives the full power of the JobsFirst system: a dedicated coordinator, parallel agency review, hard decision deadlines, and public tracking.
- Priority designation does not guarantee approval. All applicable environmental standards, safety requirements, and public participation rights remain fully in place. What it does guarantee is a decision — on a schedule, with accountability.
- Get a single point of contact
- Every JobsFirst Priority Project is assigned a dedicated state coordinator — one person whose job is to guide your project through the system, connect you with the right agency staff, surface issues before they become delays, and escalate problems that need resolution at a higher level.
- You will not be passed from office to office. You will not get a different answer from every agency. You will have one person accountable for moving your project forward.
- What this means for you: A partner inside state government, not a maze to navigate alone.
- Parallel review with a hard deadline
- Once you are ready for State permitting action, all relevant state agencies will review your project simultaneously rather than sequentially, to the extend allowed by law. Coordinated interagency meetings happen at the 30-, 60-, and 90-day marks to share findings, flag issues, and keep reviews aligned.
- For Priority Housing and Mixed-Use Projects, all state-level determinations must be issued within 120 business days of a complete application — approximately six months. For Priority Energy Projects, the deadline is 120 business days, with up to 180 for projects of exceptional complexity. For Priority Broadband Projects, the target is 60 business days.
- If an agency cannot meet its deadline, it must notify the Governor’s Office and the applicant in writing with specific reasons and a remediation plan. Delays must be documented. Silent delay is not permitted.
- What this means for you: A real deadline. Real accountability. And a written explanation if it slips.
- Track it publicly
- Every JobsFirst Priority Project will be listed on the public Priority Project Dashboard. Anyone — applicant, neighbor, advocate, or reporter — can see the project’s status, which agencies are involved, which permits are pending, what milestones have been reached, and whether the state is on schedule. The Dashboard is expected to be live in late June.
- Agencies submit public implementation reports at 6, 12, and 18 months after launch, documenting before-and-after timelines, projects approved, and statutory barriers that require legislative action. The data is public. The performance is public. The accountability is real.
Mission of JobsFirst
The mission of JobsFirst is to begin the transformation of Delaware’s permitting and regulatory review processes into a coordinated, transparent, and accountable system that delivers timely decisions. The JobsFirst program is focused on priority projects in housing, energy, broadband that are critical to Delawareans, with a goal for the program to expand to all permitting.
JobsFirst is designed to close the gap between Delaware’s potential and Delaware’s pace — to ensure that a worthy project with real community benefit does not stall for years in an administrative process that was never designed with accountability or coordination in mind.
We do this by:
- Coordinating state agencies around shared timelines and shared information, so reviews run in parallel rather than in sequence and no project gets lost between agencies.
- Holding government and the applicant accountable through hard deadlines, public reporting, and a real-time dashboard that makes every bottleneck visible — to developers, to the public, to the Governor, and to the permit applicant.
- Centering community benefit by tying faster review to real public value: affordability requirements for housing, clean energy goals for the grid, universal access for broadband, and public health protection for water and sewer.
- Preserving what matters by maintaining every environmental protection, every public participation right, and every safety standard — because speed without standards is not reform, it is a shortcut, and shortcuts have consequences.
JobsFirst is the state government process Delaware’s economy and communities deserve: responsive, transparent, and built to deliver.
Vision for Permitting
Our vision is a Delaware where any developer, municipality, community organization, or business that wants to build something that benefits Delawareans can come to a single front door, submit once, and receive a coordinated, time-bound decision from every relevant state agency — with their project’s status visible to the public every step of the way.
Over the next few years Delaware will be moving to:
- One permit application that routes to every agency, so applicants are not rebuilding a paper trail ten times for ten different review processes. The goal is for the State to partner with the Counties and the municipalities to make it a one stop for permitting at all levels of government. Initial combined forms for DNREC and DelDOT will be coming online in late 2026.
- One clock that starts when an application is complete and runs for every agency simultaneously, so no agency can silently delay while others have finished their work. The goal is for the state to hold the state to 120 business days for permitting applications. This process starts now as we start to accept projects into the JobFirst permitting acceleration program.
- One point of contact for every priority project — a dedicated coordinator who knows your project, knows the system, and is accountable for keeping it moving.
- One dashboard where anyone — applicant, neighbor, mayor — can see in real time where a project stands, which agency has the next action, and whether the state is on track.
We are building this system in stages. We start with JobsFirst Priority Projects — the housing, energy, broadband, water and sewer, and mixed-use projects with the clearest community benefit and the most urgent need for faster decisions. As the technology comes online and matures, the processes will be refined and the vision will expand: counties, municipalities, and eventually the full universe of state permitting brought under one transparent umbrella.
This is not a vision for a distant future. The first pieces are being built right now. The dashboard is coming online to track priority projects later this year. The consolidated permitting application is in development and the JobsFirst program application is available now. The agencies are at the table. Delaware is building the permitting system of tomorrow, today.