This (last) week in dover

by James DeChene

​The General Assembly entered its last week of the 2017 session with over 130 bills on the ready list, and with more bills being prepped and ready to go. Included in the mix are:

• The DEDO reorganization bill, which passed and has been sent to the Governor for signature.
  
• Modernizing the Coastal Zone Act, which is out of committee and on the Senate agenda for a vote
  
• The three revenue bills impacting personal income tax, alcohol excise taxes and the tobacco tax - all of which are also on the agenda for a House vote.  
  
• Along with those is a bill impacting small businesses, HB180, which relates to how and when businesses have to notify their clients of a cyber security attack, along with what remuneration must be made in certain instances.  The bill passed the House, and it is currently unclear if it will make it through the Senate before the end of session. We will provide more details on this next week.

In addition to all of these bills, a budget has yet to be finalized as of this writing, and it remains unclear as to whether there will be a budget in place in time to avoid some sort of continuing resolution to keep the government operational through July.  More info to come next week in the aftermath of the end of session.