| HB 72 | Signed | Dorsey Walker | This bill raises the public bidding thresholds for procurement of goods, contractual services, professional services and public works contracts by county governments to match the bidding thresholds set forth by the State of Delaware’s Contracting and Purchasing Advisory Council or otherwise set forth by state law. Section 1 of this bill addresses the bidding thresholds set forth in 9 Del C. § 314. First, this bill removes subsection f, which exempted Kent County from subsection a, which will now apply to all counties. Second, this bill grants Sussex County the same power and authority with respect to sole source procurement, emergency needs, contract performance, multiple source contracting as granted to the State under Chapter 69 of Title 29, an authority already granted to the government of New Castle County and Kent County. Finally, this bill grants Sussex County the same power and authority as Kent County and New Castle County to grant contracts without requesting competitive bids and without awarding such contract to the lowest bidder when such contracts are for engineering, legal or other professional services requiring special skills or training. Section 2 of this bill modifies the procedure by which the Financial Officer of Sussex County may award public contracts and aligns it with the procurement procedure set forth in Section 1 of this bill. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 9 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO COUNTY BIDDING THRESHOLDS. |
| HB 137 | Signed | Griffith | This Act corrects the Delaware crisis text number and the National Suicide Prevention call or text line that is required to be printed on pupil identification cards for all public schools serving pupils in grades 7 to 12 and for all students attending public institutions of higher learning in Delaware. This Act takes effect for the 2023-2024 school year. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 14 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO PUPIL AND STUDENT IDENTIFICATION CARDS. |
| SB 110 | Signed | Lockman | This Bill increases the courthouse municipality fee assessed on limited liability company (LLC) filings and corporate filings from $20 to $40. The fee is expected to raise $8.5 million to be distributed to the municipalities designated as the places of holding the Court of Chancery. The fee is distributed to the municipality in the county in which a business entity’s registered office is located. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 6 AND TITLE 8 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE COURTHOUSE MUNICIPALITY FEE. |
| SB 116 | Signed | S. McBride | This Act adopts the PA Licensure Compact, which is an interstate occupational licensure compact for physician assistants (PAs). The purpose of the Compact is to strengthen access to medical services and enhance the portability of a license to practice as a physician assistant while safeguarding the safety of patients and complementing the existing authority of state licensing boards to license and discipline physician assistants. Under the Compact, a physician assistant licensed in a Compact member state may obtain a privilege to practice in another Compact member state. Physician assistants using a Compact privilege to practice in another state must adhere to laws and regulations of practice in that state and are under the jurisdiction of the regulatory board of the state in which they are practicing.
The Compact contemplates the establishment of a PA Compact Commission, which will consist of one delegate from each member state and will administer the Compact, and a data system, for the purpose of maintaining a coordinated data and reporting system containing licensure, adverse action, and investigative information on licensed physician assistants in participating states.
The Compact will take effect on the date of enactment by the seventh state. Currently, 1 state has enacted the Compact and at least 4 states, not including Delaware, are considering legislation to enact the Compact. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 24 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO A PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS LICENSURE COMPACT. |
| HB 148 | Signed | Baumbach | This Act makes updates to Title 15 related to the efficient administration of elections.
Section 1 requires that ballots and sufficient materials essential for the administration for each election shall be provided to each polling location on Election Day.
Section 2 revises, consolidates, and clarifies the sections of the Code that address opening and preparing ballots for tabulation. Updates are made to the language to reflect the use of electronic scanning and tabulation machinery rather than written tally sheets. It also clarifies the process for creating a duplicate ballot that can be read by the machine in the event the original ballot is unreadable. For administrative efficiency, the Act extends the time when ballots may be opened and processed to begin 30 days before the election rather than the Friday before the election.Finally, instead of requiring the teams of election judges to be composed of half Democrats and half Republicans, the requirement would now be that no more than half of the members of the team may be registered with any one party. This allows independents or members of smaller parties to participate as election judges but prevents any one party from dominating a team, as a safeguard against fraud. The requirement that ballots may only be opened and processed in public meetings, with challengers present, and that the ballots at all times are securely stored is maintained. The results of the ballots are not permitted to be extracted or reported before the polls have closed on the day of the election
| AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 15 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO ELECTIONS. |
| HB 161 | Signed | Bush | This Act allows the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to assist more small businesses and organizations in making energy efficiency improvements to their facilities by raising the proportion of those projects that can be funded through grants or loans by the Energy Efficiency Investment Fund. Currently, assistance is capped at 30% of the project cost up to $250,000, leaving an applicant to come up with the remaining 70% or more. This can be prohibitive for smaller entities. By raising the eligible proportion of the project cost to 60%, without changing the maximum funding, the Department can help more small businesses, local governments, and nonprofits reduce their operating costs and environmental impact. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY INVESTMENT FUND. |
| HB 171 | Signed | Heffernan | This Act extends the Clean Air Act Title V Operating Permit Program annual fees for facilities in Delaware, which have historically expired and been reauthorized by the General Assembly every three years. Existing statutory authorization to collect fees sunsets on December 31, 2023. This legislation updates the fee assessments based on the work of the Title V Operating Permit Program Advisory Committee and makes additional clarifying updates. For 2024-2026, the total fee will be comprised of a base fee, user fee, and program fee. Base fees are based on the number of staff hours spent on the source’s permitting, compliance, and enforcement activities, while the user fee is based on the source’s air emissions. The program fee will be assessed based on the total base and user fees. This Act authorizes the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to collect Title V annual fees for calendar years 2024 through 2026, at which point the authority sunsets and would need to be reauthorized. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 7 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE CLEAN AIR ACT TITLE V OPERATING PERMIT PROGRAM. |
| SB 149 w/ SA 1 | Signed | Sokola | This Act would move the 2024 presidential primary election for major political parties from the fourth Tuesday in April to the first Tuesday of April. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 15 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTIONS. |
| HS 1 for HB 98 | Signed | K. Williams | This Act creates certain uniform, minimum requirements for public notice related to permits and permit renewals issued by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. In particular, the notice must include instructions for electronic submission of public comment or request for hearing, the permit application to which the notice applies must be available electronically and a link to a page where the application may be accessed electronically shall be provided in the text of the notice, a copy of the notice shall be posted on the Department's website in addition to whatever other means of delivery is required for the notice, and elected officials whose district includes the location of the permitted activity must be individually notified by e-mail. Where the application materials are too voluminous to post online the Department may provide instructions for alternative access.
Conforming and technical changes are made to other parts of the Code that deal directly with public notice of permit applications.
The Act is effective 180 days after its enactment. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 7 AND 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO NOTICE REQUIREMENTS FOR DNREC PERMITS. |
