Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Two Big Stories To Kick Off This Post-Easter Session:

1.  Will the General Assembly Stop Windfalls For Retired Legislators, And Potentially Themselves, Down The Line?

2.  The General Assembly Has Completely Tuned Out John Carney.

Yes, the two are inter-related.  Bryan Townsend said it on the record:

Delaware Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend said lawmakers weren’t aware of the pension payout problems until local reporters reached out seeking clarity on the issue, and are still trying to gather information.

“My understanding is that the (pensions) office has been looking at this for 12 months now and to me, it defies statistical probability that there would not have been some kind of outreach to the Legislature to let us know of some kind of discrepancy whether 27 years ago or 27 days ago,” Townsend said. “We should have been informed that something was amiss.”

This comes on the heels of a State Auditor summary stating that the books of the Department Of Labor Office Of Unemployment Insurance are ‘unauditable’.  Responses to the report from administration officials were dismissive.  As in ‘above the law’ dismissive.

There’s more.  This one makes it difficult to determine whether the inaction of the Governor’s office was due to incompetence or malice.  On March 1, 2023, Sen. McBride, along with all Democrats in the House and Senate leadership, introduced SB 58.  During COVID, the Department of Health & Social services had ‘not charged copays for Delaware Families earning up to 200% of the federal poverty level and ha(d) reimbursed purchase of care providers for 15 absent days per child per month. These practices have been successful in stabilizing families and providing early learning programs for Delaware’s needy families and children.’  SB 58 would have continued that practice. The Carney Administration lobbied heavily against the bill, arguing that the State couldn’t afford it.  Well, guess what?  Sen. McBride and the Democrats on the Joint Finance Committee funded this initiative.  It passed along with the Budget Bill.  $20 million which, BTW, was more than the $13 mill annually that Carney deemed too costly.  Sen. Gay introduced and passed SR 13,  which ‘directs the Department of Health and Social Services to prepare reports on the Purchase of Care Program and directs the Department of Education to prepare reports on child care capacity.’

Happy ending, right?  Not so fast, my friend.  All that remained was for the bureaucrats in DHSS to change their procedures to ensure that families were stabilized and that early learning programs for needy children were restarted.  However, Carney’s minions refused to carry out their legal obligations, leaving the program in limbo.  Didn’t do anything for the remainder of 2023, didn’t do anything until about a month ago when, faced with having the General Assembly publicly castigating him, Wilmington’s would-be future mayor decided he had no choice but to do what was by law required of him.  He then quietly had the changes implemented.

I’ve come to think that our (meaning my) impression of Carney has been wrong.  Oh, sure, he has no vision of his own, he isn’t a real Democrat.  We’ve known all that for some time.  But I thought he was at least a capable steward of state government.  I have but one question:  Based on what?  We’ve had all these screw-ups lately which of course doesn’t factor in the latest Port giveaway.  Can someone please defend Carney’s competence using facts?  Thank you.

But I digress.  Let’s get back to Bryan Townsend’s quote.  Will the General Assembly stop this unearned pension windfall for former and current legislators?  I checked the latest legislative pre-file, and there’s nothing yet.  But I expect it to be a topic of conversation in all of the caucuses today.

Ho-kay.  Time to check out today’s (all things are relative) action.  Nothing of interest on today’s Senate Agenda.  Today’s House Agenda features HB 127 (Baumbach), which ‘provides each county with the ability to impose, by duly enacted ordinance, a fire protection fee (fee). A county that enacts this fee must do all of the following: 1. Deposit all money collected from this fee in an account that is segregated from the county’s general funds. 2. Establish criteria under which this money is distributed to fire companies providing fire protection in the county.’  I’m frankly surprised this hasn’t happened before.  ‘Bout time, I’d say.

All Senate Committee meetings are on Wednesday this week.

Today’s House Committee highlights:

HB 364 (Romer) ‘requires that individual, blanket, and group health insurance carriers cover drug treatment for the associated conditions of metastatic cancer in the same way treatment for metastatic cancer is covered. Specifically, it requires insurance companies to cover any FDA approved drug prescribed to treat the side effects of metastatic cancer treatment and prohibits insurance companies from mandating that patients first fail to respond to a different drug or prove a history of failure of such drug‘.  Economic Development/Banking, Insurance And Commerce.

HS1/HB 17 (Morrison) ‘requires all employers in the State to provide employees with a minimum of 1 hour of earned sick time and safety leave for every 30 hours worked. For employers of fewer than 10 employees, the time may be unpaid, job-protected time instead of paid time.’  Great bill. Labor.

Back tomorrow with a story about a legislative committee that has consistently violated its chamber’s rules.  The reveal–may not surprise you.