Rep. Cyndie Romer

This legislation prioritizes recruitment and retention of State employees by removing the 3-month waiting period for the state to pay its share of premium or subscription charges for health care coverage under § 5202 of Title 29 for benefit eligible state employees hired on or after January 1, 2024 by revising the definition of a “regular office or employee.”

This Act provides that any adult day care facility required to be licensed under Chapter 1 of Title 16 is subject to the existing reporting obligations for facilities under Subchapter III of Chapter 11 of Title 16 of the Delaware Code.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an estimated 800,000 children are reported missing each year. This Act is a substitute for Senate Bill No. 46. Like Senate Bill No. 46, this Act revises this State's missing children laws to improve search efforts, increase collaboration between law enforcement agencies, and increase public information about missing children. This Act differs from Senate Bill No. 46 in that it does all of the following: (1) Removes language relating to “unemancipated minors” and instead uses the term “child”, as defined in § 302 of Title 1 of the Delaware Code, uniformly throughout Subchapter II of Chapter 85 of Title 11 of the Delaware Code. Delaware does not have emancipation of minors and anyone under the age of 18 is considered a child under our laws. (2) Includes a legal custodian as a person who can sign a dental authorization form to permit release of dental records to law-enforcement agencies. This allows the Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families to authorize the release of dental records for any child in its legal custody. (3) Includes a legal custodian as a point of contact for law-enforcement agencies when fulfilling their duties regarding unidentified deceased persons. This allows the Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families to be a point of contact and receive information for any child in its legal custody. (4) Removes the limitation on who may report a missing child and instead allows a child to be reported missing by any person. This enables schools, daycares, group homes, relatives, or persons caring for a child without legal authority to report a child missing from their care. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act establishes a wellness program designed to improve the well-being of first responders and first responders’ immediate family members, as well as civilian employees of police, fire, and emergency medical services agencies and their immediate family members, through the provision of wellness program services by trained peer support members. Wellness program services may include counseling, spiritual guidance, and education about financial resources, health resources, legal assistance, and stress management services. This Act extends the confidentiality privileges to include communications made by a first responder, the first responder’s immediate family member, a civilian employee, or a civilian employee’s immediate family member, to a trained peer support member providing wellness program services though a state, county, or municipal law-enforcement, fire, or emergency medical agency’s wellness program. This Act adds chaplains to definition of “first responders”. This Act defines “civilian employee”. This Act updates the definitions section to account for the creation of the wellness program. This Act also revises the confidentiality exception in § 4319(d)(4) of Title 10. In current Code, the exception applies in certain instances where the first offender uses critical incident stress management (CISM) services to commit or attempt to commit “a crime or fraud or mental or physical injury to the first responder who received critical incident stress management services or another individual”. This Act replaces the quoted phrase with “‘crime’, as defined under § 233 of Title 11, or fraud.” This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. The technical changes include combining the privileges to refuse to disclose any matter and refuse to produce any object or record that are covered in § 4319(b) and (c) of Title 11 in current Code into a single subsection, § 4319(b) of Title 10. This Act updates subsection (c) so that it only contains 1 subject: that the privileges in subsection (b) only apply if the proceedings, communications, or records, including information, are obtained during the provision of critical incident stress management (CISM) services or wellness program services.

This Act expressly adds the intentional restriction of another adult’s access to economic resources resulting in a loss of financial autonomy to the definition of abuse for protection from abuse proceedings. This Act also specifies that tangible property of the petitioner includes legal documents belonging to the petitioner. In addition, this Act codifies the existing practice of Family Court to allow relief by ordering respondents to return specific legal documents. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act codifies the Equity Ombudsman program, the purpose of which is to provide students and families encountering inequity in the school system with non-lawyer advocates to assist them. The Educational Equity Council, as a stakeholder council, provides oversight to the Equity Ombudsman program, to provide broad review, analysis and recommendations, for the improvement of student equity and outcomes in Delaware’s public education system.

This bill creates the Delaware Personal Data Privacy Act. The Act delineates a consumer’s personal data rights and provides that residents of this State will have the right to know what information is being collected about them, see the information, correct any inaccuracies, or request deletion of their personal data that is being maintained by entities or people. This Act is modeled after existing frameworks for data privacy in other jurisdictions. This Act will apply to entities that conduct business in the State of Delaware who controlled or processed the personal data of not less than 35,000 consumers or controlled or processed the personal data of not less than 10,000 consumers and derived more than 20 percent of their gross revenue from the sale of personal data. This Act requires Delaware Department of Justice to engage in public outreach to educate consumers and the business community about the Act beginning at least 6 months prior to the effective date of the Act.

This Act updates the definition of a catalytic converter and limits the purchase or sale of a catalytic converter to a licensed automotive recycler or licensed scrap metal processor, and their respective employees and agents. The Act prohibits minors from selling catalytic converters. The Act specifies the amount of time the catalytic converter must be held before sale as well as what contact information must be obtained from the purchaser and seller as well as identification information on the catalytic converter and requires the information be maintained for 1 year. The Act places a 48 hour hold on payments and limits payment form to checks and limits the time of day and location for the sale of a catalytic converter. The Act requires the licensed sellers to make the purchasers’ and sellers’ contact information available to the police. This Act makes a catalytic converter, in violation of this chapter, considered contraband and, possession thereof, subject to seizure and forfeiture. This Act is for the purpose of regulating the purchase and sale of catalytic converters and for the purpose of assisting law enforcement in response to the high level of catalytic converter theft that has occurred in Delaware. This Act also makes technical changes to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

Senate Bill No. 80 codifies the current practice in Delaware of not requiring proof of citizenship or a specific immigration status on an application for a professional license. By affirmatively providing eligibility for professional licenses regardless of immigration status, Senate Bill No. 80 brings Delaware into compliance with a federal requirement in place since August 22, 1996, under 8 U.S.C.S. § 1621(d), and provides public notice of this policy. Senate Bill No. 80 also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. Senate Substitute No. 1 for Senate Bill No. 80 differs from Senate Bill No. 80 by also codifying the current practice of allowing an applicant for a professional license who does not have a social security number to submit instead, an attestation stating that if the applicant obtains a social security number in the future, the applicant will update their application with that social security number.

This Act makes various amendments to the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act to improve compliance with its testing and reporting requirements. First, this Act requires physicians to take a training program every 2 years relating to the provisions of the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act. Second, it requires the Division of Public Health to develop electronic forms to be used at a child’s 12 and 24 month well visit that record lead screening results and are shared with the Divison. Third, it clarifies that laboratories and health care professionals involved in blood lead level analysis must report results to the the Division of Public Health. Finally, it requires the Division of Public Health to share data with school nurses relating to whether an enrolled student has been screened for lead poisoning.