Rep. Sherry Dorsey Walker

This Act creates the Disabled Veterans Property Tax Relief and Education Fund. Pursuant to this legislation, school districts are authorized to create a credit against school taxes for up to the full amount of school tax liability for property owned by a veteran with a 100% disability rating who is domiciled in this state. The full amount of such credit will be reimbursed by a transfer from the State’s General Fund to the County Receiver for distribution to such school districts. It has a delayed effective date to allow for implementation of the program.

Section 1 of this Act modifies Delaware’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to allow recipients to choose the most beneficial credit to be applied against their Delaware Personal Income Taxes. Under this Act, recipients can choose between a non-refundable credit of up to 20% of the value of the corresponding federal EITC or a refundable EITC credit of up to 4.5% of the value of the corresponding federal EITC. Section 2 of this Act makes the change to Delaware’s EITC effective for the tax year in which the Secretary of Finance provides the Registrar of Regulations with notice that the personal income tax release of the Integrated Revenue Administration System is implemented. This delay in effective date is necessary to ensure that tax law changes can be properly and efficiently implemented in the Division of Revenue’s modernized Integrated Revenue Administration System, which is currently under development. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act creates emergency access to epinephrine that allows an institution of higher education to acquire and stock a supply of epinephrine autoinjectors if an employee or agent has completed a training program. This Act allows the individual who has completed the training program to provide an epinephrine autoinjector to someone experiencing anaphylaxis for immediate self-administration or administer an epinephrine autoinjector to someone experiencing anaphylaxis. Before an individual administers an epinephrine autoinjector under this Act, the individual must notify EMS immediately, and after administration, must report the administration to the prescribing health-care provider. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the creation of the new subchapter and to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual..

This Act establishes a Health Care Provider Loan Repayment Program for new primary care providers to be administered by the Delaware Health Care Commission. Under the loan repayment program, the Health Care Commission may award education loan repayment grants to new primary care providers of up to $50,000 per year for a maximum of 4 years. Priority consideration may be given to DIMER-participating students and participants in Delaware based residency programs. Sites eligible to apply for grants on behalf of their new primary care providers must be located in underserved areas or areas of need and must accept Medicare and Medicaid participants. Grants to hospital sites must be matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis by the applicant hospital and the disbursement of grants from the program is contingent upon an initial, one-time contribution to the Health Care Provider Loan Repayment Program, in an amount Fiscal Year 21 appropriation of State funds up to a maximum of $1 million, from Delaware health insurers. This Act also provides that the Delaware Healthcare Commission may award Health Care Provider Repayment grants on a prorated annual basis.

This Act changes the current evaluation system for all teachers from the former Delaware Performance Appraisal System II evaluation to a new Delaware Teacher Growth and Support System. The goal of this new evaluation system is to build a culture of professionalism and learning within every school by converting the evaluation system from a teacher-focused to a learning-focused system. It also increases accountability by requiring a beginning, middle and end of the year review of both the teacher’s professional learning goals and student improvement goals. All teachers (not just 4-8 testing subjects) will be held accountable for student growth. The new evaluation system will only apply to teachers. Specialists and administrators will continue to be evaluated under the Delaware Performance Appraisal System II. Under this Act the new evaluation system will be phased in with a minimum of 3 local education agencies participating in a pilot program for academic year 2021-2022, which will sunset on June 30, 2022. Under Section 2 and 3 of this Act, effective academic year 2022-2023, all teachers will fall under the Delaware Teacher Growth and Support System and all specialists and administrators will be evaluated under Delaware Performance Appraisal System II.

This Act updates the domestic violence first offender diversion program to allow the following offenses to be eligible for the program: assault third, terroristic threatening, and criminal contempt of a domestic violence protective order or lethal violence protective order. In addition, the Act makes these same offenses ineligible for probation before judgement in the Court of Common Pleas and Family Court.

This Act moves the date by which the Department of Education shall submit its annual report to the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council from August 1 to October 15 of each year. Moving the date to October 15 will better accommodate the data collection, quality control, and certification process utilized by the Department of Education. Schools and districts are required to enter their data by July 1 and the process of verifying the information and making any corrections necessary to certify the data is usually finished by October 1.

This Act provides increased funding for kindergarten through third grade students identified as eligible for basic special education services. Currently, basic special education is provided for students in fourth through twelfth grade who are identified as eligible for basic special education and related services; there is no additional unit funding for students in kindergarten through third grade who may be eligible for basic special education services. The Act adds a designation of “K-3 Basic Special Education (basic)” and over three years reduces the number of students comprising a unit from the current 16.2 to 8.4. This Act will increase the unit count funding for K-3 Basic Special Education (basic) students by School Year 2023-2024, Fiscal Year 2024, to be consistent with the 8.4 unit of pupils currently available to students in grades 4 through 12. Sections 1 through 3 of this Act change the funding chart currently in the Code to subsections and provides for a decrease in the ratio between the number of students enrolled and the unit count for basic special education from 16.2 currently to 12.2 in Fiscal Year 2022, 10.2 in Fiscal Year 2023, and 8.4 in Fiscal Year 2024. Section 4 of this Act delays the effect of each Section until the start of each new fiscal year in the 3-year cycle over which this Act’s changes are intended to occur.

This bill allows the Public Guardian to collect fees for services in accordance with standards to be established by the Guardianship Commission and approved by the Court of Chancery.

This bill will provide Delaware students with strong academic credentials and a demonstrated commitment to volunteer public service to receive scholarship monies sufficient to cover the full cost of tuition at Delaware State University. The intent of this bill is to increase the number of students in Delaware who not only attend the University but who successfully complete degree programs.