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1 week ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
Delaware is quickly approaching Gov. Matt Meyer’s desired deadline of finalizing a new education funding framework by the end of June, but education experts are raising concerns over the new proposal. The Public Education Funding Commission’s (PEFC) next meeting is this Monday June 2, and the body has been tweaking a new "hybrid" approach over the past several weeks.
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1 week ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" passed the U.S. House by just one vote and is now being mulled over by the U.S. Senate, where Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester is urging her Republican colleagues to reconsider some of the proposed federal funding cuts. The cuts listed throughout the bill are an effort to find $1.7 trillion in savings to help pay for the president’s plan to extend his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is set to expire at the end of this year.
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1 week ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
State Rep. Krista Griffith’s (D-Fairfax) Freedom to Read Act clears the Delaware House with some bipartisan support after debate on seven proposed amendments from Republicans. House Republican Leader Tim Dukes (R-Laurel) signed onto the bill as a co-sponsor when it was first filed, but he voted against the bill Thursday when several of his proposed amendments did not receive enough support to be added to the legislation.
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2 weeks ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
A slate of voting rights bills advance in the General Assembly, bringing Delaware one step closer to constitutionalizing early, mail-in and permanent absentee voting among other election-related bills. Mail-in voting, same-day voter registration, permanent absentee voting and early voting have all been struck down by Delaware courts in recent years.
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2 weeks ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
Eighteen years after its first introduction in the General Assembly, a bill to establish an Office of the Inspector General passes the Delaware Senate. A bill to create an Inspector General’s Office first entered the state legislature in 2007 and has been reintroduced repeatedly since, only to stall each time. State Sen. Laura Sturgeon (D-Woodbrook) introduced the bill last year, and although it cleared the Senate Finance Committee, it never made it to the floor for a full vote.
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2 weeks ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
The General Assembly clears a bill that would allow Newark to levy a $50 per-student, per-semester tax on the University of Delaware (UD). The Newark City Council voted unanimously to collect the tax early last year, but the city needs legislative approval from the state to amend its charter. That charter change cleared the State Senate Thursday, now only awaiting signature from Gov. Matt Meyer to become official.
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2 weeks ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
The House Judiciary Committee clears a slate of criminal justice bills before heading into a two-week recess for state budget-writing markup. House Bill 133 would allow certain fees and fines to be waived for defendants without the means to pay them. In addition to the collection of fines for committing an offense in Delaware, the state has various fees it imposes on defendants like the Court Security fee, Victim’s Rights fee, Voluntary Ambulance Fund fee and several more. State Rep.
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2 weeks ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
Delaware's economic projections are faring better than the state's financial leaders predicted in March, but uncertainty at the federal level remains a concern. The Delaware Economic Financial and Advisory Council (DEFAC) — the body in charge of projecting the state’s revenues and expenditures — is predicting the state will have $98 million more dollars to work with for the upcoming fiscal year than it did at its last meeting in March. Gov.
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2 weeks ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
After over a decade’s worth of effort and contentious battles within the state legislature, Gov. Matt Meyer signs legislation to legalize medical aid in dying, making Delaware the 12th jurisdiction to do so. The bill allows terminally ill adults with no more than a six-month death prognosis to explore end-of-life options, commonly referred to as physician-assisted suicide. Former State Rep.
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2 weeks ago | 
delawarepublic.org | Sarah Petrowich
Delaware’s two Port of Wilmington expansion project oversight bodies met back-to-back on Monday, but Gov. Matt Meyer’s administration only attended one of the meetingsIn April, the General Assembly revived a task force from 2015 to provide additional oversight to the new Edgemoor Container Terminal project, which has been a point of contention between the Meyer administration and the state legislature.
