Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. Under civil forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize your car or other property, sell it and use the proceeds to fund agency budgets—often without so much as charging you with a crime. This Act protects individual liberty and property rights by standardizing forfeitures across all crimes, simplifying procedures, and addressing counterproductive incentives in the law that distort policing priorities. Importantly, this Act does not change the authority of law enforcement to seize property suspected of being associated with crime or limit in any way prosecutors’ ability to charge and prosecute suspected criminals. Moreover, it ensures that those individuals proven guilty of a crime do not keep the fruits of their crime. In doing so, it strikes the right balance between the individual property rights and public safety.
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In many circumstances persons who owe child support have received monetary awards in the form of a court settlement, verdict, judgment, or under a worker’s compensation award. This Bill requires a prevailing litigant to advise his attorney or insurance carrier of any outstanding child support arrears owed and directs the attorney, insurance carrier or other paying agent to pay the proceeds up to the arrears owed to DCSS to satisfy any outstanding arrearages owed to the custodian. If child support arrears or retroactive support is owed, the lien, up to the amount of child support arrears or retroactive support owed, must first be paid before any funds (excluding the first $1,000 of net proceeds) may be released to the prevailing party.
This concurrent resolution calls on the Department of Transportation (DelDOT) to study and revise as appropriate, the emergency evacuation routes for the beach areas in lower Sussex County.
This Act is the first leg of a constitutional amendment that would require the same super-majority vote to amend a provision that results in the act's expiration on a certain date, also known as a "sunset" provision, as was required to pass the act in the first instance.
This resolution encourages all Delaware departments and agencies to consider citizens with visual impairments when developing, maintaining, procuring, or using electronic information and technology.
This resolution proclaims March 17, 2017 as "Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Awareness Day" in Delaware.
This Act continues the reforms enacted over the past 4 years by restructuring Chapter 11 of Title 12, and adopting in substance many provisions from the 2016 Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act promulgated by the Uniform Law Commission. In addition, this Act adopts certain recommendations from the Delaware Unclaimed Property Task Force formed under Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 59 of the 147th General Assembly, and makes significant changes to the State’s unclaimed property law to bring greater predictability, efficiency, and fairness to the State's unclaimed property reporting process and compliance initiatives. More specifically, these changes include reducing the look-back period of all voluntary disclosure agreements and audits to 10 report years, and creating a 10 year statute of limitations for the State to seek payment of unclaimed property due to the State. In addition, this legislation aligns the State’s record retention requirement for companies with the statute of limitations and look back period, which brings State law into conformity with a majority of other states. This Act also offers any company currently under audit prior to July 22, 2015, the opportunity to convert their audit into a voluntary disclosure agreement by entering into the Secretary of State Voluntary Disclosure Agreement program. All companies who received a notice of examination and are currently under audit as of the effective date of this Act will have the opportunity to engage in an expedited audit review process. Finally, this Act mandates that interest be assessed on any late-filed unclaimed property, as a means to incentivize voluntary compliance.
This bill imposes a cap on the interest rate that may be charged for “alternative financial services” at an annual rate of interest of 100%. “Alternative financial services” is a term sometimes used for payday loans, installment loans, and other credit products generally targeted towards working class people without access to more traditional banking or credit card services. Over the years, this state and others have made various efforts to regulate the industry, to assure that it is operating fairly and in a non-predatory manner. Generally, lenders in this industry have restructured their loan products to avoid such laws and regulations. See, e.g., James v. National Financial, LLC, 132 A.3d 799, 834-838 (Del. Ch. 2016). By placing a cap on interest rate in Chapter 22, the purpose of this bill is to circumscribe the ability of short-term, sub-prime lenders to take advantage of unsophisticated borrowers – regardless of the name or structure they may give the credit products. By its terms, Chapter 22 does not apply to more traditional financial products offered by banks, credit unions, credit card companies, and the like. Traditional financial products are already extensively regulated by state and federal law, and are less amenable to abuse. The bill also prohibits the use of automated withdrawals on short-term loans regulated by Chapter 22 for delinquency payments or accelerated default payments. It prohibits repeat attempts to make an automated withdrawal for at least 5 days after a declined payment, unless the borrower authorizes another attempt in writing. This will prevent borrowers from being charged multiple fees by their banks for overdrafts or declined withdrawals when licensees try repeatedly in a short time frame to process an automated withdrawal.
This Act requires public schools to begin their school year after Labor Day. There have been many economic impact reports done that show a positive impact from starting public schools after Labor Day. A report by the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association estimates that $369 million would be lost if schools were not required to start after Labor Day. This includes $104 million in wages and $21 million in state and local taxes. Maryland is considering similar legislation. A study of Maryland found that pushing the start of school back would generate $74.3 million in economic activity and $7.7 million in new state and local tax revenue.