These news briefs were originally written for CT Politics, The Connecticut Mirror’s weekly newsletter providing updates on the 2025 legislative session. To sign up for CT Politics, click here.
Student athlete endorsement contracts
Six bills passed out of the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee Tuesday, including legislation that would allow student athletes to sign endorsement contracts.
Prior to the vote, committee co-chair Derek Slap, D-West Hartford, raised concerns that if the legislation didn’t pass out of committee, it would have put the University of Connecticut and its athletics at a “severe disadvantage.”
“While this may result in a net loss of revenue for the university when it comes to their athletic department, it seems like that’s very plausible, we stand – we meaning the university and the state of Connecticut – stand to lose far more if we don’t get this bill over the line,” Slap said.
A proposal to prohibit scholarship displacement also passed out of committee Tuesday after broad support in public testimony last week.
At the meeting, lawmakers considered and approved raising more concepts in upcoming weeks, which would include establishing a student loan forgiveness program for nurses, considering how to better support students with disabilities in higher education and allowing more students to live off-campus.
— Jessika Harkay, Education Reporter
Free swimming lessons, child care center changes
The Committee on Children heard testimony on Wednesday on a bill that would provide free swimming lessons to low-income children in Connecticut. The proposed legislation, Senate Bill 1218, would establish a program beginning in July 2025 that would take place during the summer months, in an effort to prevent drownings among young kids and create more equity for low-income children and children of color. The idea has already seen some preliminary testing thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act, which allowed the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to partner with YMCAs across the state and provide free swimming lessons to thousands of children.
The committee also heard testimony on two bills related to family child care homes: House Bill 6839 would increase the number of children allowed in family child care homes from nine to 12, and House Bill 6180 would require those facilities to notify parents and guardians if there are guns present.
— Laura Tillman, Human Services Reporter
Oversight of home care
In his budget proposal, unveiled this week, Gov. Ned Lamont recommended spending $72,758 in the second year of the biennium for an additional special investigator in the Department of Consumer Protection to boost regulation of homemaker companion agencies.
The Connecticut Mirror reported in 2023 that the state’s growing home care industry was operating with little oversight.
The CT Mirror reviewed more than 75 complaints against homemaker companion agencies filed with the consumer protection department between 2018 and 2020 and discovered at least half a dozen cases in which homemaker companion agency employees were arrested for allegedly stealing from their clients, more than a dozen findings by DCP investigators of agencies that routinely mis-advertised the services they provided, and seven complaints of clients being left alone for hours at a time.
Many of the DCP investigations led to small fines of less than $5,000 or an employee being fired. Agency officials acknowledged the department had never denied a homemaker companion business’ registration and had never revoked a business’ registration following an investigation.
“The Department of Consumer protection currently employs two full-time special investigators, a staffing pattern that has not changed significantly since 2012 despite the 176% increase in the number of registered homemaker companion agencies operating in the state,” officials wrote in Lamont’s budget proposal. “The additional special investigator will allow DCP to more effectively regulate this rapidly growing industry.”
The governor also included funding for a range of home care initiatives: additional money for home and community-based service caseloads, increased cost-sharing for state-funded home care, and rate increases for home health aides and workers under the state-funded home care program and Medicaid waiver programs.
“This funding will help providers address workforce challenges, particularly as demand for home and community-based services has increased due to an aging population and consumer preference to live independently at home,” officials wrote in Lamont’s budget.
— Jenna Carlesso, Investigative Reporter
Homelessness caucus
Two Democratic state representatives on Thursday announced that they had established the “End Homelessness Caucus,” to focus on policies to help unhoused people secure housing and access services.
State Reps. Kadeem Roberts, D-Norwalk, and Laurie Sweet, D-Hamden, established the caucus, citing the increases in the homeless population over the past few years. Homelessness has risen nationwide. In Connecticut, it increased 13% from 2023 to 2024.
Roberts will serve as the caucus’ chair, and Sweet will be vice chair.
“The creation of this caucus is long overdue,” Roberts said in a Thursday press release. “Connecticut is one of the richest states in the nation, but that does not mean it is immune from homelessness.”
— Ginny Monk, Housing and Children’s Issues Reporter
Housing funding
The Housing Committee on Tuesday voted to have public hearings on two measures that aim to keep people in their housing, but would require additional funding from the state.
Committee members decided to consider adding more vouchers to the state’s Rental Assistance Program. The program covers a portion of participants’ rent, but only a fraction of people who qualify are able to participate.
They also proposed a change to state law that would allow a program that offers free legal aid to people being evicted to be funded by state dollars. The program is currently funded by federal COVID relief money and faces a shortfall if it doesn’t get an infusion of state cash in the next biennium.
Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget proposal included a provision to add vouchers to the state’s rental aid program and $5 million for eviction prevention.
— Ginny Monk, Housing and Children’s Issues Reporter
Money for climate
Environmental advocates complained this week that they felt largely left out of Gov. Ned Lamont’s two-year, $55.2 billion state budget announced on Wednesday.
“There wasn’t much in there for the environment, there really wasn’t,” said Connor Yakaitis, the deputy director of the Connecticut League of Conservation voters. “We need to see results.”
Activists have grown increasingly frustrated with Lamont’s administration over what they say is a lack of commitment to the state’s climate goals, which include slashing most greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
In a presentation outlining the administration’s budget priorities on Wednesday, Office of Policy and Management Secretary Jeffrey Beckham said that the bulk of capital spending on environmental projects should go toward clean drinking water programs — as it has in the past.
Beckham also announced focus on climate resiliency, including $15 million for victims of “catastrophic events” such as last year’s historic flooding in the Naugatuck Valley.
“We thought we’d add a particular catch-all that would help us, in case of an exigency like that in the future,” Beckham said. “But as well, there’s money here for dam repairs, erosion control, flood control, that sort of thing.”
Last month, Lamont asked lawmakers to pass a yet-to-be-released climate resiliency bill, which he said will include mandatory notification for home buyers about flood risks and a prohibition on state funding for residential developments in the most at-risk areas, among other provisions.
Also included in the governor’s capital spending plans were $75 million in the next fiscal year to install solar panels on state properties, as well as money for brownfield cleanups, microgrid projects and PFAS remediation.
— John Moritz, Environment and Energy Reporter
Electroshock therapy
The Public Health Committee heard emotional testimony regarding a proposal to extend the time limit on court orders authorizing involuntary electroconvulsive therapy, commonly referred to as electroshock therapy, or ECT. Current statute states that if a patient is deemed incapable of providing informed consent to receive electroshock therapy, a facility can petition probate court to approve treatment for a period of 45 days without the patient’s explicit consent. The bill would extend that period to 90 days.
Several psychiatrists testified in support of the bill, saying that they’ve seen patients for whom ECT is a life saving treatment. However, several residents who have undergone ECT, as well as advocacy groups, testified against it, highlighting negative side effects of the treatment, including permanent memory loss and physical injury. “I feel that ECT is unmonitored, unregulated, human experimentation on unwitting participants. Extending its use with reduced informed consent provisions is inhumane,” wrote Sarah Price Hancock, a patient who has previously undergone ECT, in written testimony.
— Katy Golvala, Health Reporter