This Resolution recognizes January 9, 2019, as “Wildland Firefighter Day”.
This Act is the first leg of a constitutional amendment that requires the General Assembly to wait 48 hours from the introduction of the budget appropriation bill, bond and capital improvement act, and act making appropriations for certain grants-in-aid bill, or any substantive amendment or substitute bill to such bills before voting on such legislation unless the General Assembly by a three-fourths vote waives this requirement. The purpose of this provision is to allow all interested persons, including legislators, a reasonable amount of time to review the three significant financial legislative acts before voting on such legislation. This restriction can be waived if three-fourths of each House of the General Assembly agrees to act in a shorter time period.
This proposed Constitutional Amendment establishes 20 year term limits for Representatives and Senators beginning with those terms of office elected during the general election of 2022. If a Representative or Senator serves 20 consecutive years in the same office, they would not be eligible for re-election at the next general election for that chamber. Any ineligible candidate would be able to run again for this seat in the general election that follows this term of ineligibility.
This bill changes the earned income tax credit from nonrefundable to refundable. This bill creates a table for the percentage of earned income credit for tax years 2018 and after. Currently, if spouses file a joint federal return but separate State returns, only the spouse with the higher taxes due can use the State earned income tax credit. This bill eliminates that limitation starting with tax year 2018 and provides that the credit shall be divided equally between such spouses.
This Act authorizes the Insurance Commissioner to issue conditional certificates of authority to captive insurance company applicants, which authorizes the captive insurance company applicant to conduct business while the Insurance Commissioner completes the review of the application materials. Conditional certificates of authority will be issued only upon receipt of evidence of the minimum capital and surplus required by Chapter 69 and a certification from the captive owner that the application materials comply with the requirements of Chapter 69. A captive insurance company granted a conditional certificate of authority must pay the Insurance Commissioner a fee of $100. This Act also authorizes the Insurance Commissioner to summarily revoke a conditional certificate of authority if the Commissioner determines that the captive insurance company has failed to comply with the licensing requirements of Chapter 69. During the period of the conditional certificate of authority, the captive insurance company shall comply with and be subject to Chapter 69. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This Act stabilizes revenue for the Hazardous Substances Cleanup Act ("HSCA") Fund ("the Fund") by minimizing the wide swings in revenue due to oil prices changes. Under this Act, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control ("the Department") is prevented from receiving a revenue windfall when oil prices rise, while minimum funding for the Brownfields Grant Program is protected when oil prices are low. The legislation ties HSCA funding to a median benchmark and authorizes the Division of Revenue to adjust the tax rate up or down for the following year to smooth the revenue stream and avoid the roller coaster effect of oil price changes. This Act caps the HSCA tax rate at 1.675% and allows the lowest rate to drop to .675%, versus the current HSCA rate of .9%. This Act sets aside a minimum of $5,000,000 annually in HSCA funds for the Brownfields Grant Program, which has leveraged private investment of 16 times the public funds expended in cleaning up polluted sites and returning them to productive use, generating jobs and tax revenue.
This Act establishes the High Needs Educator Student Loan Payment Program. The Program allows qualified applicants to apply for a payment from the State to the applicant’s lending agency, to pay a portion of the applicant’s student loan debt. The purpose of the Program is to encourage Educators to work and remain working in certification areas in which Delaware has a shortage and to encourage Educators to work and remain working in Delaware’s hardest-to-staff Schools. The amount of the award shall be no less than $1000 and no more than $2000. This substitute redesignates the chapter where this language will be placed in the code.
Since 1973, § 9605(b) of Title 9 of the Delaware Code (“§ 9605”) has prohibited the recordation of instruments that restrict the sale, gift, transfer, assignment, conveyance, ownership, lease, rental, use, or occupancy of real property to or by any person because of the person’s race, color, creed, sex, national origin, or ancestry. This Act provides a mechanism for owners of real property subject to an instrument that contains a provision that restricts property rights based on the list of characteristics included in § 9605, including the governing documents of a common interest community, to redact and strike the unlawful restrictive covenant language from instruments recorded with a county recorder of deeds before the original enactment of § 9605 or in violation of § 9605. This Act also amends the list of characteristics included in § 9605 that may not be used to discriminate in the sale, gift, transfer, assignment, conveyance, ownership, lease, rental, use, or occupancy of real property to make it consistent with Delaware’s fair housing laws. However, this Act makes clear that provisions that are permitted by the exceptions to the Delaware Fair Housing Act are not prohibited from being recorded by a recorder of deeds. Finally, this Act makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This bill allows for small employers who have more than 5 employees to obtain a “stop loss” policy for health insurance. This will provide more options for small employers in the health insurance market. Additionally these changes bring the section into compliance with the Delaware Legislative Drafting manual.
This Act fulfills recommendations made by the Joint Legislative Overview and Sunset Committee by making amendments to the statute governing the Board of Occupational Therapy Practice to make Chapter 20 of Title 24 consistent with other Title 24 boards and delete antiquated sections that are no longer applicable, including: - Adding the duty to report conduct that constitutes grounds for discipline or inability to practice. - Removing "censure a practitioner" as an available sanction. - Removing references to temporary licenses, because the temporary license section of the statute was repealed in 2005. - Removing § 2015(c) and § 2017(c) because they are covered under the Administrative Procedures Act. - Revising the reciprocity language to address situations where a licensee holds a current license in a state that is no substantially similar to Delaware. In addition, this Act includes several amendments to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual, including deleting unnecessary words, correcting grammatical errors, and improving consistency and clarity.
