Rep. Ed Osienski

Enactment of the Every Student Succeeds Act amended the Individuals with Disability Education Act (“IDEA”) by mandating that special education teachers must have obtained full certification and may not be working under emergency certifications. The Delaware Department of Education must stop issuing emergency certifications in special education in order for for the State to continue receiving $36 million in federal IDEA funding for our schools. This Act creates a mechanism that is in compliance with federal requirements to enable educators to obtain a certificate of eligibility in the areas of special education. Educators will be able to meet federal requirements while being enrolled in an approved, alternative routes to certification program. This Act will allow local education agencies to staff special education classrooms while ensuring the educators are receiving high quality training working toward their standard certificate in the appropriate area of special education. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This bill increases the maximum annual corporation franchise tax in the amount of $60,000, from $180,000 to $240,000.

This Act conforms Delaware’s deadlines for filing certain information returns to those established in the Internal Revenue Code. In an effort to combat identity theft and taxpayer fraud, federal filing dates were recently changed. For example, starting in 2017 the federal deadline for an employer to file aggregated W-2 data with the IRS will be January 31, which is the same date on which W-2s are distributed to individual taxpayers. Prior to this change, the IRS did not receive W-2 data until March 1 meaning that there has been a one-month window in which it could not readily confirm the authenticity of W-2s filed with taxpayers’ returns. Like other states and the IRS, Delaware has had to devote considerable resources to combating fraud and identity theft. By conforming to the new federal standard, Delaware will have data on hand that will help identify and isolate fraudulent filings. As the State’s employers will already be required to comply with the new federal deadlines, conforming Delaware’s filing dates will result in no additional administrative burden.

This bill creates the Grant-In-Aid Committee. The Committee is a joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives. The purpose of the Committee is to review requests for grant-in-aid and to develop the grant-in-aid appropriations bill.

This Act restores the Delaware Prescription Drug Payment Assistance Program which was eliminated in the Fiscal Year 2018 Annual Appropriations Act.

This bill seeks to expand the eligibility criteria for the Juvenile Offender Civil Citation Program by including the offense of possession of drug paraphernalia and permitting a second referral to the Juvenile Offender Civil Citation Program where the first referral occurred more than 18 months ago and was not a referral for the same offense.

This Act enhances penalties for drivers who cause serious physical injury, as defined in § 222 of Title 11, to a vulnerable user, as defined in this Act. For a person to be guilty under this Act, the injured vulnerable user must be lawfully using a highway, defined in § 101 of Title 29 as "the entire width between boundary lines of every way or place of whatever nature open to the use of the public as a matter of right for purposes of vehicular travel . . . ." This Act also expands the circumstances in which a driver is criminally liable from violations of the careless or inattentive driving law to any violation of the rules of the road, Chapter 41 of Title 21, that result for a serious physical injury to a vulnerable user. Finally, this Act gives Superior Court jurisdiction over these violations due to the serious nature of the injuries required to be suffered by a vulnerable user.

This Act allows professional licensing boards and commissions administered by the Division of Professional Regulation to recognize military education, training, and experience of all current and former military personnel when reviewing credentials and issuing licenses. This is a change from the current law, which only allows such boards and commissions to do so for active duty military, members of the National Guard, or military reserves assigned to a duty station in Delaware. This change would recognize the military education, training, and experience of individuals who are retired, a veteran, or are active duty individuals assigned to duty stations located outside this State.

This bill creates a requirement that all public high schools, including charter schools, shall offer at least one computer science course at the high school level by the 2020-2021 school year. Also, this bill creates a requirement that, by the 2018-2019 school year, a computer science course may satisfy one year of the total credit requirement in mathematics, excluding Algebra I, Geometry, or Algebra II or the equivalent courses. The State Board of Education shall develop guidelines addressing how computer science courses can satisfy graduation requirements.

This bill allows Delaware Department of Transportation authorized vehicles to be able to use the shoulder of the road when responding to emergencies. Department of Transportation staff must respond to emergencies along the road to assist police, fire and paramedics with establishing maintenance of traffic. By allowing the use of the shoulder of the road staff will be able to respond in a timely manner.