Senate Bill No. 208 clarifies that an employer is liable to an employee for liquidated damages if the employer does not make wages available on the next payday after an employee quits, resigns, is discharged, suspended, or laid off. Senate Substitute No. 1 for Senate Bill No. 208 revises these clarifications so it is clear which sections of existing law, §§ 1104 and 1107 of Title 19, provide the basis for an employer to have reasonable grounds to dispute that an employee is owed wages, and like SB 208, does not make any changes to existing law regarding when an employer may withhold or divert any portion of an employee’s wages: 1. Section 1104 of Title 19 requires that in a dispute over the amount of wages, the employer must pay all wages conceded by the employer to be due and the employee may pursue a claim for any balance claimed. 2. Section 1107 of Title 19 prohibits an employer from withholding or diverting any portion of an employee’s wages unless required or empowered to do so by state or federal law. Since 1979, Regulation 1328 of Title 19 of the Delaware Administrative Code has provided that an employer may, under written agreement, withhold wages for a cash advance or the value of goods and services, but withholding wages for damaged or unreturned property is a violation of § 1107 of Title 19. Specifically, Senate Substitute No. 1 for SB 208 differs from SB 208 by doing the following: 1. In subsection (a), includes the changes from Senate Amendment No. 1 to SB 208, which clarify the manner that final wages earned by a former employee must be provided and a date by which that payment must be made. The date by which an employer must pay final wages changes current law by extending the time, allowing an employer to make this payment the later of the next regular pay cycle or 3 days after the last day the employee worked. 2. In subsection (b), clarifies that §§ 1104 and 1107 of Title 19 provide the reasonable grounds that may be a basis for an employer to dispute that an employee is owed wages. 3. In subsection (c), revises the correction of the grammar in existing law so that it is clear that an employer is not in violation of Chapter 11 of Title 19 if the employer is unable to prepare payroll due to a labor dispute, power failure, weather catastrophe, epidemic, fire, or explosion. Like SB 208, this Substitute Bill also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual and revises the section heading to accurately describe the content of the section.
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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.
Recognizing the negative impact of criminal justice imposed financial obligations on defendants has led to reforms across the country to reduce the financial burdens that disproportionally impact the poor. This type of debt and the collateral consequences of suspending a driver’s license negatively impacts the rehabilitation of those in the criminal justice system and pushes those without an ability to pay further into the system unnecessarily. This Act does all of the following: (1) Prohibits a court from imposing a fine, fee, cost, or assessment on children without the means to pay them. (2) Provides the courts with the discretion to waive, modify, or suspend any fine, fee, cost, or assessment. (3) Prohibits a court or the Department of Transportation from suspending a driver’s license for nonpayment of a fine, fee cost, assessment, or restitution and from charging a penalty, assessment, or fee to a defendant for the cancellation of a warrant issued due to the defendant’s nonpayment of a fine, fee, cost, assessment, or restitution. (4) Prohibits a court from imposing an additional fee on a defendant for payments that are made at designated periodic intervals or late, or when probation is ordered to supervise a defendant’s payment. Nothing in this Act precludes the court from filing contempt charges against defendants who willfully fail to pay their fines. (5) Requires the Judiciary and the Delaware Criminal Justice Information System to report on the sum collected from fines, fees, costs, assessments, and restitution and make a public report of these totals. (6) Eliminates the Public Defender fee and the Probation Supervision fee. The collections from these fees currently go to the General Fund. (7) Creates the Criminal Legal System Imposed Debt Study Group to review the impact that court imposed financial obligations have on defendants and victims and make recommendations to promote access, fairness, and transparency in the imposition and collection of court imposed financial obligations. (8) Makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
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.
The Delaware Fair Chance Licensing Act provides that it is the policy of this State to allow entry to professions and occupations with licensing requirements for individuals with a criminal history to the maximum extent consistent with public safety. To that end, the bill identifies certain kinds of criminal history elements that should not be considered by licensing boards: charges that are not pending and did not lead to a conviction; juvenile records; records that have been expunged, sealed, or pardoned; and convictions that are more than 10 years old. An exception is allowed to the 10 year rule to preserve existing prohibitions involving sex offense convictions. The Act also identifies factors a licensing authorityshould consider in determining whether a criminal history record would prohibit licensure, or whether a waiver should be granted. The bill provides a process whereby an individual may submit an inquiry to the Division of Professional Regulation regarding whether their criminal history would be disqualifying for a particular license. Finally, it provides that the Board or Division must provide a written statement to an individual if their criminal history record would be disqualifying and allow the individual to submit rebuttal materials if they wish to do so. Technical changes are also made to conform the provisions to the requirements of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. Conforming changes are made to all the Chapters of Title 24 that are administered by the Division of Professional Regulation. Technical corrections are made to existing provisions to conform with the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
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 clarifies that the Attorney General’s right of access under Title 29, Section 2508(b) to the books, papers, records, and other documents of the State does not apply for purposes of discovery in any civil litigation brought by or on the relation of the Attorney General, except for the Department of Justice’s own documents. This Act is intended to ensure that state agencies, departments, boards, officers, instrumentalities, and commissions will have the discovery protections afforded to non-parties in such litigation by applicable rules of civil procedure or state or federal law.
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 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.