Terms Used In Delaware Code > Title 31 > Chapter 1 - Department of Health and Social Services

• Agency: includes every board, department, bureau, commission, person or group of persons or other authority created and now existing or hereafter to be created to execute, supervise, control and/or administer governmental functions under the laws of this State or to perform such other duties as may be prescribed or to whom any moneys are appropriated under any budget appropriation act or supplemental appropriation act or any other act which authorizes and requires any department to collect and/or use any taxes, fees, licenses, permits or other receipts for services or otherwise for the performance of any function of or related to or supported in whole or in part by the laws of this State, and/or created to administer any laws providing for the collection of taxes, fees, permits, licenses or other forms of receipts from any sources whatsoever for the use of the State or any agency of the State, except the judiciary and the courts of the State. See Delaware Code Title 29 Sec. 6301
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Budget: includes the complete financial plan of the State as evidenced by all appropriations and allowances made and estimates of revenue approved by the General Assembly, including, in addition to the general budget of appropriations adopted by the General Assembly and approved by the Governor, all other appropriations and allowances authorized by law which have been or shall be made to any agency of this State which is supported in whole or in part out of the revenues, taxes, licenses, fees, permits, fines and from other sources including any agency which is empowered by statute to collect and expend revenues by the use of special funds by whatever name known whether or not specifically appropriated by the General Assembly, and includes the budgets and the revenues and expenditures of all agencies to which moneys are appropriated by supplementary appropriations or otherwise. See Delaware Code Title 29 Sec. 6301
• dollars: means lawful money of the United States. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Grant-in-aid: includes an appropriation of the public money from the General Fund for a public purpose to any county, municipality, corporation, private agency or person. See Delaware Code Title 29 Sec. 6301
• Joint committee: Committees including membership from both houses of teh legislature. Joint committees are usually established with narrow jurisdictions and normally lack authority to report legislation.
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• real property: is synonymous with the phrase "lands, tenements and hereditaments. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• United States: includes its territories and possessions and the District of Columbia. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302
• Year: means a calendar year, and is equivalent to the words "year of our Lord. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302