This bill amends the Delaware Public Employment Relations Act by expanding the jurisdictional application of the Act to employers with less than 100 employees and as few as 25 employees.
This bill amends the Delaware Public Employment Relations Act by requiring that the Board, consistent with the Board’s Rules and Regulations, issue written decisions following hearings on unfair labor practice charges within 30 days of the close of the record.
According to a recent CDC survey, the COVID pandemic exacerbated an existing mental health crisis for students. One in 5 school aged children has a mental health condition, and 45% of children may have experienced a traumatic event. This bill provides for excused absences for the mental or behavior health of a student and requires that any student taking more than 2 such excused absences will be referred to a behavioral health specialist. This bill provides a supplemental tool to identify students struggling with mental and behavioral health issues and legitimizes these struggles faced by many students. Moreover, this bill makes clear that the mental and behavioral health of students is a priority in this State.
This Act is Nolan’s Law. The purpose of this legislation is to provide more behavioral health supports to school districts and charter schools in the aftermath of a school-connected traumatic event, which is defined as the death of any student, educator, administrator, or other building employee of a public school. The Department of Education is charged with developing guidance, best practices, and written resources for schools dealing with a school-connected traumatic event. The Department must consult with behavioral health specialists and school-based mental health professional organizations such as NAMI, Delaware, Delaware Association of School Psychologists, Delaware School Counselors Association, and the School Social Workers Association of Delaware. The Department must finalize these items by January 1, 2024. This legislation also requires the Department to cover the costs of grief counseling offered to students for up to thirty days after a school-connected traumatic event. In an effort to create a more standardized approach for the occurrence of a school-connected traumatic event, this bill charges each school district and charter school to establish a detailed crisis response policy that must meet a minimum number of required policies and procedures. Policies must be adopted by the school district or charter and distributed to the Department of Education by September 1, 2024.
This Act authorizes paramedics and other EMS providers to provide medical care to police dogs injured at the scene of an emergency. This Act also grants civil immunity to paramedics and other EMS providers who provide medical services to police dogs, so long as their efforts to assist the police dog were in good faith. However, this Act clarifies that in a situation where a human and a police dog need emergency medical care at the same time, the medical services personnel are prohibited from providing care to the police dog over the human, if the care of the police dog would hinder the human’s care.
This Act permits an individual who is a reproductive health care services provider or employee to apply for participation in Delaware's Address Confidentiality Program, which allows participants to keep their actual address confidential by applying to the Department of Justice for a substitute address to which all mail will be delivered. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This Act directs the State’s current needle exchange program to take a needs-based approach. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This Act requires that each county reassess the value of real property in the county at least once every 5 years. The first 5-year period starts when the reassessment currently being conducted by each county is completed. This Act also makes revisions to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual and for consistency with current law and terminology as follows: 1. Because boards of assessment are not responsible for assessing property in any of the counties under current law, this Act repeals the penalty under § 8306 of Title 9 against a board of assessment that knowingly and wilfully assesses property at an incorrect value and corrects references to a county Department of Finance instead of the board of assessment in § 8307 of Title 9. 2. Requires that real property be assessed at its “present fair market value” instead of at its “true value in money.” Delaware courts have established that the “true value in money” for real property means its “present fair market value”, which is the terminology that is currently used.
This bill would extend various deadlines in the Unemployment Code. The intent is to provide claimants and employers additional time to receive and prepare a response or appeal of benefit determinations and other important documents that require a response, in an effort to reduce the incidents of late filed appeals and missed deadlines. This would benefit claimants and employers by providing more time, while also reducing the administrative burden to the Division of Unemployment Insurance of responding to late appeals and late filed documents. This bill also makes conforming changes to additional sections of the Unemployment Code that provide for delivery by mail or other delivery methods to provide flexibility to the Division and Board if they decide to send notices and other documents by email or other delivery methods to reduce mailing expenses and increase efficiency. Finally, this bill confirms Superior Court precedent that Code references to “days” mean “calendar days” unless otherwise specified.
There are thousands of casual/seasonal employees, who work for the State of Delaware. These hard-working individuals make up a critical part of the state government workforce and play a significant role in keeping our state running and delivering services to the people of Delaware. Since these individuals are not eligible for the state pension plan, many of them are eager to participate in a retirement savings plan so that they can save, invest, and build wealth for a secure and comfortable retirement. Currently, these individuals are not permitted to participate in the state’s 457(b) plan. This bill allows casual/seasonal employees the opportunity to participate in the 457(b) plan.
