This Act establishes an evaluation and assessment system created by the Department of Education to determine whether a school facility is in good repair to assure that school facilities are clean, safe, and functional for staff and students. This Act also requires the Division of Public Health to create a routine indoor air quality monitoring program that includes temperature and humidity standards that is published on the Department of Health and Social Services website. It further requires the Division of Public Health to create a contractor certification program for indoor air quality services that will allow schools to contract with properly trained and certified contractors when indoor air quality remediation is necessary. The Act also provides procedures for districts to make procedures clear for receiving and reporting indoor air quality complaints in schools. This Substitute bill differs from the original in that it does not provide for implementation of the routine indoor air quality monitoring program nor its enforcement. Once the program is created and there is a better understanding of what it will require, the General Assembly may then establish how, and to what extent, to implement the program with the knowledge of what is necessary to do so.
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The purpose of this chapter is to provide incentives for resident Delaware taxpayers to donate organs and bone marrow for transplantation and for Delaware employers to grant paid time off to employees who donate organs and bone marrow for transplantation. To that end, the Act allows Delaware taxpayers to claim a tax credit of up to $10,000 of unreimbursed medical expenses, travel expenses, lodging expenses, and lost wages that are related to a donation of an organ or bone marrow by the taxpayer or a dependent of the taxpayer. The Act also gives a tax credit to Delaware employers who provide employees who donate an organ or bone marrow with paid time off for the purpose of the transplantation, in the amount of 25% of the employee’s gross wages paid to the employee during the time missed from work, not including any amount paid to the person by the employer as traditional paid time off, for a period of up to 30 days of missed work for each donation. For qualified expenses used for a tax credit under the Act, to the extent otherwise allowable under Title 30, no tax deduction is allowed for either the donor or the employer. This Act is a substitute for and differs from Senate Bill 301 by providing that expenses related to a donation of organ or bone marrow incurred in the taxable year before the transplantation took place must be claimed in the year transplantation took place. It also provides that lost wages, for purposes of the individual tax credit, do not include any amounts paid to the person as traditional paid time off, as other than traditional paid time off, as worker's compensation benefits, or pursuant to Chapter 37 of Title 19. Similarly, gross wages, for purposes of the employer tax credit, do not include any amount paid to the person by the employer as traditional paid time off. The Act also provides implementation dates for the individual tax credit and the employer tax credit. Finally, the Act includes minor changes made for purposes of clarification.
When a youth who is experiencing foster care and living in an out-of-home placement has a need for inpatient psychiatric treatment, there can be a delay in gaining voluntary admission to a facility due to the Division of Family Services needing to obtain the youth’s parent or legal guardian’s consent for treatment. This can lead to a youth waiting in an emergency department bed or other inappropriate setting while waiting for the proper consent to be signed. In some cases, when a youth’s parent or legal guardian cannot be located, the youth must be involuntarily committed in order to obtain inpatient treatment, even when the youth is going willingly. This bill allows the Department of Services for Children, Youth & Their Families, Division of Family Services Director or Deputy Director to sign the request for voluntary admission to a psychiatric treatment facility for a youth in foster care. In the case of a youth in foster care whose parent or guardian’s legal parental rights have not been terminated, the Division of Family Services works collaboratively with the youth’s parent to get consent on medical treatment and decisions. This bill would enable youth experiencing foster care to access psychiatric treatment voluntarily when their parent or legal guardian is not available to consent to the treatment on their behalf. This bill also allows the Director or Deputy Director of the Division of Family Services to make a written discharge request on behalf of the youth receiving voluntary treatment.
This Act renames the Blackbird State Forest’s Meadows Tract the “Ennis Tract” in honor of Senator Bruce C. Ennis. The Blackbird State Forest’s Meadows Tract covers 456 acres with open meadows, forested trails, and three ponds, and includes one of Delaware’s two forest education centers. The Meadows Tract is part of an ecologically critical zone connecting the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. The Blackbird State Forest is managed by the Department of Agriculture and is a popular destination for hiking, horseback riding, nature watching, camping, and hunting.
This Act adds victims of human trafficking to the Address Confidentiality Act. Under this program, certain crime victims are provided a substitute address by the Department of Justice so as to protect the participant’s actual address from public disclosure. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This Act creates a statewide Grow Your Own Educator Program to improve recruitment, retention, and diversity of educators in Delaware public schools. The Program establishes a competitive grant process to be administered by the Department of Education. Any Delaware reorganized school district or charter school can apply for a grant to establish its own unique Grow your Own Educator Program. Subject to funding grants will be awarded on a 2-year basis. Applicants must provide a detailed explanation how their proposed Program will be run, including any partnerships with institutions of higher education and whether the Program anticipates providing last dollar tuition and related educational financial assistance to candidates accepted into their Program who commit to teaching a minimum of 3 years, upon licensure, in the Applicant’s school district or charter school. Any awarded grant money must be used to initiate and run the Program. In evaluating applications that meet the Department’s criteria, if funding is limited, the Department will give additional weight to Applicants that prioritize recruiting candidates from high-need schools, placing teacher candidates in high-need schools, develop programs that support teacher professionals, including bilingual candidates and those without bachelor’s degrees, and leverage apprenticeship and year-long teacher residency models. The Department will annually provide Program data to the Senate and House Education Committees including the number of grant applications, the number of grants awarded, names of districts and charter schools receiving grants, and retention rate for educator candidates hired by the district or charter school. For fiscal year 2022-2023 $4,000,000 is anticipated being appropriated to the Department from the General Fund consistent with the agreed settlement terms in In Re Delaware Public Schools Litigation, C.A. No. 2018-0029-VCL which states, in part, that the Governor’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2023-2024 will include at least $4,000,000 to support enhanced teacher recruitment and retention in high-need schools. A portion of those funds will be allocated to implement the Grow Your Own Educator Program established in this Act.
This act authorizes the application of funds from the Delaware School Safety and Security Fund, which is subject to available appropriations, for the retention of constables to be utilized by the LEAs.
This Act adopts the Uniform Law Commission’s (“ULC”) Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (“Revised Uniform Law”). As our State continues to recover from COVID-19, chief among the changes in the Revised Uniform Law relevant to our State’s current situation are those that permit notarial acts to be performed for a remotely located individual, an individual who is not in the physical presence of the individual performing the notarial act. These revisions include recent amendments made by the ULC to respond to areas the law needed to address that were discovered during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the need to have tangible documents ink-signed and notarized and the administration of oaths taken by remotely located individuals. Adoption of this Act will expand on Governor Carney’s authorization for remote notarization to be performed by licensed Delaware attorneys, codified in § 3156 of Title 20, by allowing all notarial officers authority to perform remote notarization. In addition to retaining provisions that provide integrity in the process of performing notarial acts, the Revised Uniform Law does the following: (1) Provides the authority to notarize electronic documents on par with notarization of tangible documents, including authority for the Secretary of State to regulate notarization of electronic documents. (2) Requires a notary public to maintain a journal of all notarial acts the notary public performs. (3) Adopts new licensing procedures for notaries public, including minimum requirements for commissioning and grounds to deny, suspend, or revoke commissions. (4) Prohibits a notary public from acting in a deceptive or fraudulent manner. Current Delaware law on notarial acts is an adoption of the Uniform Law on Notarial Acts, approved by the Uniform Law Commission in 1982. This Act’s adoption of the Revised Uniform Law would bring Delaware law on notarial acts into conformity with at least 20 other states, including all of the states bordering Delaware (Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey), which currently allow remote notarization and notarization of electronic records and include the updated provisions that enhance the integrity of the process of performing notarial acts. This Act’s adoption of the Revised Uniform Law is delayed until January 1, 2023, to provide the Secretary of State and notaries public time to implement the Revised Uniform Law. In the interim, this Act continues the authority for Delaware attorneys to conduct remote notarization, codified in § 3156 of Title 20, until the Revised Uniform Law takes effect. Then, Delaware attorneys will be authorized to conduct remote notarization under the Revised Uniform Law, like attorneys in other states that have adopted the Revised Uniform Law.
This Act prohibits employers from requesting or requiring that an applicant for employment disclose the applicant’s age, date of birth, or dates of attendance or graduation from an educational institution in an initial application for employment, unless the employer is requesting the information because of a bona fide occupational qualification or to comply with state or federal law.
The Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline and the Board of Nursing are responsible for establishing continuing education requirements for medical professionals licensed by these Boards. This Act adds a requirement that practitioners licensed by these Boards who treat adults must complete one hour of continuing education in each reporting period on the topic of diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias. This bill also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.