Rep. Ed Osienski

This bill makes modification to the New Economy Jobs Credit allowing qualified employers to pro-rate their job creation activity in the first certified year, ensuring the indexation of the salary threshold is conducted prior to the calendar year to assist with business planning and establishing an incentive to qualified employers to maintain their employment thresholds.

This Act does all of the following: (1) Imposes a 5 cent per gallon tax on certain aviation jet fuel. (2) Provides the procedures for collecting the tax. These procedures are the same as the procedures under Subchapter II of Chapter 51 of Title 30; however, this Act makes technical corrections to those procedures to conform the law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. (3) Gives the Department of Transportation ("Department") authority to establish regulations and otherwise enforce the collection of the new tax. (4) Requires the Department to deposit the proceeds of the tax into the Transportation Trust Fund. (5) Requires the Department to file a report with the Controller General by September 1 of each year detailing the revenue received under this subchapter and the expenditures associated with the Department's responsibilities concerning aviation in this State. This Act takes effect on July 1, 2019.

This Bill codifies Delaware’s compatibility with certain sections of the Federal Code of Regulations related to weight of vehicles and loads and commercial vehicle safety. Delaware enforces violations contained in the Code of Federal Regulations Parts 374, 385, and 386 and wishes to formally adopt those parts and any subsequent amendments thereto.

This Bill is the Fiscal Year 2020 Bond and Capital Improvements Act.

This bill changes the earned income tax credit from nonrefundable to refundable. For tax year 2020 and thereafter, the rate of the credit is in the amount of 5.9 %.

This Act protects consumers from paying high prices for prescription drugs by ensuring competition in the marketplace by doing the following: 1. Prohibiting a pharmacy benefit manager from requiring or providing an incentive for an insured individual to use a pharmacy in which the pharmacy benefit manager has an ownership interest. 2. Requiring that a pharmacy must be owned by a pharmacist or by a majority of pharmacists if owned by an artificial entity. This ownership requirement is modelled on the same requirement in North Dakota law, enacted in 1963, which has kept North Dakota prescription prices among the lowest in the country and provides North Dakotans with more pharmacies per capita than the national average and a high level of care from locally owned pharmacies. This ownership requirement does not apply to current holders of a permit to operate a pharmacy or to hospital pharmacies that furnishes services only to patients and employees.

This Act establishes in-person early voting in Delaware beginning January 1, 2022. Registered voters will be allowed to vote in-person during at least 10 days before an election, up to and including the Saturday and Sunday immediately before the election at locations determined by the State Election Commissioner. This Act also charges the State Election Commissioner with determining whether such voting should occur by voting machine or paper ballot. All other procedures relating to conducting voting are the same as for general election voting. Further, this Act requires that for statewide elections there must be at least 1 in-person polling place in each county, and an additional location in the City of Wilmington.

This Act creates the Professional Athlete Funding Act which authorizes and establishes regulations pertaining to player brand agreements. A player brand agreement is an agreement between a professional athlete and an investor whereby in exchange for payment to the professional athlete, the athlete commits to pay a specified percentage of the athlete's future income or earnings. The purpose of this Act is to protect the professional athlete from unscrupulous investors by codifying best practices. Such practices include setting forth requirements that must be satisfied in order that a player brand agreement is valid, binding and enforceable including: (1) the agreement being written in the athlete's native language; (2) specifying the percentage of income or earning the athlete will have to pay; (3) identifying the income or earnings used to calculate the obligation; (3) not requiring the athlete to pay more than 30% of his or her future income; (4) requiring that the shared percentage lasts no more than 30 years; and (5) identifying specific criteria for the signing and executing of the agreement. This Act also authorizes the Division of Consumer Protection of the Department of Justice to enforce such agreements and to investigate and prosecute violations.

This bill would increase the maximum weekly benefit amount that would be payable to claimants seeking unemployment compensation benefits from the Delaware Division of Unemployment Insurance from $330 a week to $400 a week. The funds necessary to pay the increased weekly benefit amounts would be paid from the Unemployment Trust Fund. This bill would also freeze the taxable wage base used by employers to determine what portion of employee’s wages are subject to unemployment insurance tax assessments, for the period July 1, 2019 to October 29, 2020, to allow the Division of Unemployment Insurance and the Unemployment Compensation Advisory Council to analyze whether to revise the taxable wage base formula into the future.

This Act disqualifies an individual who obtained an overpayment of benefits through fraud from receiving future unemployment benefits until the total overpayment, penalties, and interest are repaid in full. This change does not apply to fraud overpayments established by final decision before the effective date of this Act. This Act also broadens the manner in which a notice of overpayment may be delivered and removes the 5 year deadline for filing actions to collect overpayments due to the Department. This Act takes effect 60 days after its enactment into law. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.