Rep. John A. Kowalko

Requesting the Division of Research, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Delaware Department of Technology & Information cooperate in creating a detailed and implementable plan to stream audio and video of all floor proceedings of the House of Representatives and Senate, and the public committee action of both legislative chambers; record all such material; and make these recordings available to the public via a web-based archive. The resolution further requests the 151st General Assembly and the governor to vote on the finished plan and authorize the funding needed to implement it.

This bill addresses an on-going problem relating to background checks for employees, volunteers, and contractors of child-serving entities. Currently, a person working a child-serving entity who obtains the required background check must undergo another background check when that person obtains employment at another child-serving entity even if that background check had recently been completed. This put an undue burden on the employee and the State Bureau of Identification who run the background checks. This bill would allow an employee, volunteer, or contractor who is required to obtain a background check to authorize a child-serving entity to share the results of a background check with another child-serving entity so long as the authorization is in writing and provided to the Office of Child Care Licensing. This bill also requires the Department of Education to establish a procedure to allow employees, volunteers and contractors to authorize the sharing of background checks between child-serving entities.

Section 7052 of Title 25 provides that the completion and cost of any capital improvements or rehabilitation work, as distinguished from ordinary repair, replacement, and maintenance, may justify an increase in rent in a manufactured home community but only until the cost of the improvement has been fully recovered. This Act clarifies this provision by doing all of the following: 1. Creating a clear definition of capital improvement and rehabilitation work. 2. Making the recovery of costs for capital improvement or rehabilitation work a fee so the recovery of this cost is a separate charge from rent. 3. Limits the amount of a fee to recover costs for capital improvement or rehabilitation work to 10% of the cost of the capital improvement or rehabilitation work or 10% of the rent, whichever is lower. 4. Providing notice requirements for a fee to recover costs for capital improvement or rehabilitation work. The Chapter 70 definition of rent includes fees, preserving a community owner’s ability to enforce payment of the fee. By identifying this assessment as a fee, it is clearly identified as separate from a base rent increase. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act simplifies Delaware’s drug code with a goal of providing more fairness in its application. This Act removes geographic-based enhancements that disproportionately impact those living in urban areas as opposed to suburban and rural areas. This Act reduces the number of weight tiers from 5 to 3 with adjustments to accompanying sentences while retaining higher felony levels for weights that indicate drug dealing. This Act reflects the reality that the road to recovery from a drug addiction is difficult by removing automatic sentence enhancements based on prior drug offenses, and instead allowing discretion during sentencing to determine when a repeat offender requires substantive additional penalty. Specifically, Sections 1 through 14 of this Act do the following: (1) Eliminate most aggravating factors, some of which may cause Delaware’s controlled substance laws to be applied unfairly, while maintaining an aggravating factor for those who violate Delaware’s drug dealing laws within 300 feet of and on school property. (2) Eliminate enhancements based on the commission of prior drug offenses. (3) Simplify Delaware’s controlled substance laws by reducing the number of weight tiers that are used to categorize the severity of controlled substance offenses. (4) Provide statutory guidance for the weighing and sampling procedures used at criminal trials for controlled substances. Sections 15 through 20 of this Act make conforming amendments to the Delaware Code based on changes made by Sections 1 through 14 of this Act. This Act takes effect 90 days after its enactment into law. Finally, this Act makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This act names the Delaware portion of U.S. Route 301 between Route 1 and the Delaware Maryland State line as First Responders Memorial Highway.

This Act, modeled on similar laws in Virginia and Maryland, requires a health-care provider to provide notice to a patient at the time blood is drawn to perform a laboratory test for Lyme disease that explains the limitations of the test and instructs the patient to see their health-care provider if the patient continues to experience unexplained symptoms. This Act is consumer and patient friendly.

This Bill enables the use of roof or ground mounted solar systems on privately owned residential dwellings by making covenants or other restrictions that effectively prohibit or unreasonably restrict the installation of solar photovoltaic systems in Delaware void and unenforceable, regardless of the date recorded. This Bill also explains that it is the policy of the State of Delaware to protect the public health, safety, and welfare by encouraging the development and use of renewable resources and to remove obstacles thereto. This Bill further provides for costs and reasonable attorneys' fees to be awarded to the prevailing party in any litigation arising under the provisions of this Section. This Bill does not render void and unenforceable reasonable restrictions on roof or ground mounted solar systems.

This Act prohibits the practice known as patient brokering, which is the practice where patient brokers are paid a fee to place insured people in treatment centers so that the treatment centers receive thousands of dollars in insurance claim payments for each patient. Increasingly, patient brokers fraudulently enroll patients in low-deductible health plans with out-of-network treatment benefits. Patient brokers target individuals with substance use disorders, who are told that they are receiving their treatment through a scholarship. Not only does this perpetrate fraud against insurers, when insurance plans are terminated for nonpayment of the premium, individuals are discharged from the treatment program with no services or housing and often in a state that is far from home.

This Act adds coverage for Medication Assisted Treatment ("MAT") for drug and alcohol dependencies to the mental health parity laws for health insurance. This Act requires health insurance carriers to provide coverage for prescription medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for MAT at no greater financial burden than for prescription medication for other illness or disease, without step therapy requirements, and at the lowest tier of the drug formulary. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Bill modifies the impact of criminal history on an applicant’s eligibility for licensure. It gives the Board discretion to grant waivers for felony convictions for crimes committed against a person where more than 3 years have elapsed, and more than 2 years have elapsed for other felonies. The Board is precluded from considering a conviction where more than 10 years have elapsed since the date of conviction.