This Act requires Delaware Medicaid to provide an enhancement to the acute care per diem rate for psychiatric facilities for hard to place pediatric behavioral health inpatients. The per diem enhancement is limited to an inpatient stay of 14 days. The applicability of the per diem enhancement is determined based on whether admission criteria is met. This Act also creates a Quality Oversight Committee designed to identify quality metrics for facilities admitting patients as well as provide biennial recommendations to the General Assembly’s Joint Finance Committee regarding eligibility categories and enhancement rates.
This Act creates the Joint Committee on Oversight of Agency Regulations (“Committee”) to engage in review and oversight of regulations adopted by State agencies. Like laws in states such as Colorado and Utah, this Act does all of the following: (1) Requires that all regulations adopted by an agency between each November 1 and October 31 expire at 5:00 p.m. on the following June 30 unless the General Assembly enacts a law to remove the expiration of the regulation. (2) Establishes criteria for the Committee’s review of State agency regulations. (3) Establishes a process for the Committee’s review and oversight of State agency regulations, including the requirement of a staff report, public hearings, and Committee recommendations to the General Assembly. (4) If the Committee recommends a regulation not be allowed to expire, requires the Committee to draft and introduce a bill that removes the expiration of each regulation the Committee recommends not be allowed to expire. (5) The Committee Chair, Vice Chair, and members receive the same additional compensation as the Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Committee.
This Act enhances the General Assembly’s oversight of regulations adopted by state agencies by doing all of the following: (1) Making clear that the Registrar of Regulations is required to provide notice of each regulation proposed by a state agency to each member of the appropriate standing committee of each House of the General Assembly and to provide any comments collected from members of the standing committee to the state agency. (2) Making clear that the Chair of a standing committee may also schedule a committee meeting during the regular session of the General Assembly to consider a rule, regulation, or amendment to a rule or regulation that impacts or is within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the committee. (3) Requiring the Chair of a standing committee to hold a committee meeting when a majority of the members of a standing committee of either House of the General Assembly believe in good faith that the rule, regulation, or amendment to a rule or regulation impacts or is within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the committee and the committee should meet to consider the rule, regulation, or amendment to a rule or regulation. (4) Making clear that a standing committee or joint committee may draft legislation to propose action by the General Assembly related to recommendations made by the committee. (5) Making clear that a standing committee or joint committee may request the President Pro Tempore of the Senate or Speaker of the House of Representatives to call from recess of a special session the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the General Assembly, as the case may be. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This resolution directs all electric utilities in Delaware that offer net metering to solar customers to participate in a cost-benefit study and analysis of net metering in Delaware being undertaken by the Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility to address issues such as cost burdens and cost shifting to non-solar customers.
Section 1 of this Act makes a pattern or practice of violations by a landlord of a Manufactured Home Community of subchapters I through V of Chapter 70 of Title 25 of the Delaware Code, or a provision of a rental agreement, an unlawful practice under the Consumer Fraud Act, subchapter II, Chapter 70, of Title 25, under specified circumstances. Section 2 of this Act authorizes the Attorney General to file a petition to establish a receivership of a Manufactured Home Community in a Justice of the Peace Court on specified grounds after notice to the landlord. Section 3 of this Act requires the Justice of the Peace Court to send written notice to the Director of Consumer Protection at the Department of Justice within 10 days of its receipt of a petition for tenants’ receivership under Title 25 of the Delaware Code, Sections 5901 or 7061, except in those cases where the Attorney General files the petition.
This Act raises the minimum income to be subject to income tax from $2,000 to $2,500. Also, the current 6 income tax brackets are collapsed into 3 brackets, each with a slightly reduced tax rate for most taxpayers.
This is the first leg of a constitutional amendment creating a "Crossover Day" deadline for each House of the General Assembly to send legislation over to the other House. The annual budget appropriation act, grants-in-aid act, bond and capital improvements act, and resolutions are excluded from this deadline. Currently 26 states, including Maryland, have crossover day deadlines for passing legislation between their two legislative chambers.
This Act expands the Video Lottery Intercept Program by requiring an operator of a video lottery facility to submit an individual's winnings from sports betting and table games to the Division of Child Support Services to satisfy delinquent child support obligations. The Video Lottery Intercept Program currently only collects video lottery winnings.
This bill increases the amount of money the Town of Laurel is permitted to raise from levying and collecting taxes from $500,000 to $2,500,000.
In 2015, the General Assembly, in Chapter 28 of Volume 80 of the Laws of Delaware, designated as subsection (d) the last sentence of § 4201(c) of Title 11 regarding attempts to commit a felony listed as a violent felony (“the last sentence”). The clear intent of the 2015 legislation was to make a technical correction, not to make a substantive change. However, the General Assembly should have designated the last sentence as paragraph (c)(2), as the intent of the General Assembly was to maintain the connection between the violent felony list and the last sentence, such that citations to § 4201(c) of Title 11 were intended to reference both the violent felony list and the last sentence. This Act makes a technical correction of this inadvertent Delaware Code designation error.
The Voluntary Assessment Center was created by legislative action in 1976 (60 Del. Laws Section 509) to allow recipients of minor traffic violations to pay the fine and costs associated with the violation without the need to appear in the Justice of the Peace Court. Section 709 (i) advises that "Payment of the prescribed fine, costs, and penalty assessment is an admission of guilt, a waiver of the right to a hearing, and a complete satisfaction of the violation." Upon payment, the Court can consider the matter closed and advise the Division of Motor Vehicles of the violation for the Division's recordance purposes. Formerly, those who were unable to pay the fine in one payment were required instead to submit to a court date (which engendered additional court costs) if only to request a payment plan - a practice that seemed patently unfair. Accordingly, in 2012, the Court established a process where the Voluntary Assessment Center could accept payment of fines incrementally. Although more equitable, this new process caused unforeseen consequences. Because the current definition of payment is the total amount due, if a person makes a partial payment but does not completely pay the balance of the fine, the Court cannot consider the matter closed. The Division is not made aware of the violation and the case remains in administrative limbo. Currently, no capiases or warrants are issued for unpaid Voluntary Assessments. Instead, the Division places a flag on an individual's license and registration. It is usually only years later when an individual goes to renew their license that they respond to the Court to complete payment. Redefining payment in the definition of this section will further streamline the Court's administrative process of maintaining the record and will report to the Division the associated data in a timely manner.
This bill updates and clarifies certain provisions that have been confusing or otherwise problematic in the Investor Protection Unit’s enforcement efforts, or have otherwise become out-of-synch with federal securities law. The term “Commissioner” is a holdover from when the Investor Protection Unit was called the Securities Unit, and is no longer the correct term. It is replaced with “Director” to be consistent throughout the Act. In order to ensure consistency throughout the Act and create certainty as the applicability of rules issued pursuant to the Act, the phrase “or any rule or order hereunder” has been added after “this chapter” where it was missing. This clarifies that the Rules and orders are enforceable regardless of which statutory provision is implicated by an administrative action. This bill provides a definition of “willful” that tracks the federal definition as used in federal law and in the 1956 Uniform Securities Act, on which the Delaware Securities Act was originally patterned. The Uniform Securities Act of 1956, as amended, explains in the official code comment that “As the federal courts and the SEC have construed the term “willfully” in § 15(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b): all that is required is proof that the person acted intentionally in the sense that he was aware of what he was doing. Proof of evil motive or intent to violate the law, or knowledge that the law was being violated, is not required. The principal function of the word “willfully” is thus to serve as a legislative hint of self-restraint to the Administrator.” Similarly, the definition of “security” is revised to clarify that an analysis of whether an instrument is a security should be a substance over form analysis, following the approach under federal law. Section 73-209, concerning false filings, was moved to new section 73-104 to clarify its applicability to the entire Delaware Securities Act. The heading of Section 73-201 was changed from “Fraud” to “Employment of manipulative and deceptive devices” to harmonize with that of a similar provision from the Securities Act of 1934. Section 73-207(d) was amended to clarify its applicability to securities exemptions. Section 73- 208(g) was removed as it is no longer effective. Various subsections of Section 73-302 were amended to establish clarity as to the timeline for registrations and to prevent the inadvertent approval of a registration under review by the Investor Protection Unit. Section 73-304(a)(6) is being revised to add additional securities regulators to the list of entities whose orders can be considered when determining whether to take action concerning a registrant or applicant’s registration status. Section 73-305(c)(1), which prohibits investment adviser fees based on a percentage of capital gains, is amended to allow for such fees if approved by a rule or order of the Director. This brings Delaware into harmony with federal practice, since the SEC has started allowing such a fee structure under certain circumstances, subject to periodic review of the policy. Section 73-601 is amended to clarify that there is no aggregation of violations when determining the imposition of fines; that a party seeking a hearing on a summary order must provide an answer in writing; and adds freezing accounts to the list of actions the Unit may take, which may be helpful in dealing with the increase in cryptocurrency fraud. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
