Sen. Tizzy Lockman

The Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Committee approved a project to work with the Governor's Office throughout 2018 and 2019 to identify antiquated boards, commissions, and councils that need statutory updates or outright repeals. The Architectural Accessibility Board was identified as needing updates to make it easier to fill vacancies and generally update language to modern legislative drafting standards. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act corrects a technical error in House Bill No. 311 of the 149th General Assembly. HB 311 was intended to allow the grandfathering of licenses under Chapter 39, Title 24 to occur up to 2 years after HB 311 was enacted. In fact, however, HB 311's effective date allowed for only 1 year. Under this Act, the grandfathering period will be for the intended period of 2 years.

The Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Committee approved a project to work with the Governor's Office throughout 2018 and 2019 to identify antiquated boards, commissions, and councils that need statutory updates or outright repeals. The Advisory Council to the Division of Developmental Disabilities Services was identified as needing updates to change terms to “up to” 3 years, remove political party balance, and make it easier to fill vacancies. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act makes updates to the Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Act (“JLOSC Act”) to meet modern-day needs and practices. First, this Act defines “highest administrative officer” to clarify that the executive branch, cabinet-level officer of an entity under review must be present at public hearings under the JLOSC Act. Other states have an equal mix of requiring the presence of the cabinet-level official, requiring the presence of the division-level leader, or not clarifying which of the 2 positions must be present. This Act contemplates circumstances under which a person other than the cabinet-level officer may be more appropriate to appear at JLOSC hearings, and therefore authorizes the officer, with the JLOSC Chair’s approval, to appoint a designee to meet the officer’s obligations, or the JLOSC Committee to designate a person other than the officer. This Act also makes changes to specific deadlines that are out-of-step with JLOSC’s practices and needs. In doing so, this Act also clarifies language regarding JLOSC staffs’ duties and requirements for the JLOSC’s draft report. Finally, this Act makes technical changes to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act authorizes the Division of Motor Vehicles to issue special registration plates to commemorate the Delaware State Education Association centennial. It also allows the Division to collect a 1-time administrative fee of $15 to be deposited into a special fund and used by the Division for administrative costs.

This bill requires the State food safety standards for restaurants to include a system for requiring healthy beverages to be offered as the default beverage with a combination children’s meal inclusive of a drink, sold together at a unit price. It does not prohibit the restaurant’s ability to sell, or a customer’s ability to choose, a substitute or alternative beverage as-requested by a customer. This effectively creates an “opt in” instead of an “opt out” for many sugar-rich drink choices for children. This bill also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This bill updates the real estate appraisers’ practice act to comply with federal law by clarifying the definition of federally-related transaction and adding a definition for federal financial institutions regulatory agencies. Changes to these definitions would render Delaware’s definitions consistent with federal law. Section two of the bill changes the renewal for appraisal management companies (AMC) from every two years to annually to facilitate the renewal procedure for the Division of Professional Regulation. Section three of the bill eliminates the current allowance in Delaware for a revoked or suspended real estate appraiser to have an ownership interest in an AMC, and section four disallows AMCs from removing an appraiser from its appraiser panel without prior notice. Delaware’s law currently allows AMCs to do so if the appraiser was only added to the panel in the previous 60 days. Federal law does not have any such allowance.

This Act allows the Public Guardian to act as a representative payee for Social Security benefits or as a VA fiduciary for Department of Veterans Affairs benefits. This Act also allows the Court to appoint a guardian with limited powers, to act as guardian for specific areas of decision-making or for a specific term. By making these changes, this Act will allow the Public Guardian to serve in a more limited role where appropriate, and assist more Delawareans who need short-term assistance, such as to qualify for Medicaid in order to arrange for long-term care or to handle routine financial matters but not make decisions about the care of the person. The ability to serve in a more limited role will increase the Public Guardian's capacity to assist people while the Non-Acute Patient Medical Guardianship Task Force studies options and develops recommendations to improve non-acute patient transitions from acute care settings to more appropriate locations. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. House Substitute No. 1 for House Bill No. 123 differs from House Bill No. 117 by clarifying that limited guardianships can be ordered for specific purposes, the process for terminating a limited guardianship, and that the Public Guardian serves as a representative payee or VA Fiduciary of last resort.

This Act is a recommendation following the comprehensive analysis of the Family Court Adjudicated Drug Court Program conducted by Family Court, the Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families, the Department of Justice, and the Office of Defense Services. Repeal of the Family Court Adjudicated Drug Court Program is also supported by the Government Efficiency and Accountability Review Board as noted in its 2018 Annual Report. After a comprehensive analysis of the program, it was determined that the Division of Youth Rehabilitative Services (YRS) had implemented practices, including the use of an assessment tool, that are identifying and then effectively and efficiently addressing the needs of justice involved youth with substance use disorders. The review found that YRS’ active case management practices allowed YRS to be responsive to each child’s service needs and to involve the Court as necessary. Recent juvenile justice reforms, including civil citation, are also keeping many youth from entering the justice system while simultaneously ensuring that any identified substance use disorders are addressed. Given the high level of individualized treatment services and case management youth are currently receiving inside and outside the juvenile justice system, repeal of the program was recommended.

This Concurrent Resolution establishes a task force (“Task Force”) to study and make recommendations regarding the policies, rules, structure, and regulations of the Division of Developmental Disabilities Services ("Division"). The Division provides home and community-based services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Task Force will consider, have access to, and make recommendations on several matters, including: (1) Wages and turnover rates for direct support professionals. (2) Design of systems changes and performance measures. (3) Other trends, analyses, and recommendations. (4) A synopsis of provider violations, probation, appeals, and ultimate outcomes from 2015 through 2019. The data provided to the Task Force are not records or proceedings for the purposes of § 1768 of Title 24, commonly known as “peer review privilege.” The release of data for the purposes of the Task Forces’ work does not waive the privileged nature of the data, which must already omit information that may identify a specific patient or provider before it is provided to the Task Force. This Concurrent Resolution is the result of the Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Committee deciding not to review the Division in 2020 and instead allow the Division time to undergo a more brief method of review. This process was initially created as an advisory council through Senate Bill No. 154 of the 150th General Assembly, but was later determined to be better achieved through a task force.