Connecticut’s Government Oversight Committee (GOC) held its first meeting of the legislative session on February 10 and voted to raise two bills affecting the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The first would add public school teachers to the list of public employees whose residential addresses are exempt from disclosure under FOIA. The second bill would look at how long it takes state agencies to respond to FOIA requests.
Both bills are still concepts and GOC members voted to raise the bills as concepts as a slate of 16 separate bills. Specific language has not yet been drafted.
Similar bills on both topics have been introduced in previous legislative sessions.
While the last few legislative sessions have each seen multiple bills seeking to expand the current list of state employees whose residential addresses cannot be released through FOIA, last year’s session was the first in which a bill to add teachers to that list was introduced.
Currently, the residential addresses of judges, law enforcement officers, firefighters, Department of Correction employees, attorneys who have represented the state, attorneys with the Division of Public Defender Services, Division of Criminal Justice employees, Board of Pardons and Paroles employees, Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services employees who provide direct care to patients, Commission on Human Rights Opportunities employees, and state marshals are exempt from FOIA disclosure.
The final version of the bill in last year’s session also would have created a task force to study the current address exemption in FOIA.
One bill introduced last session sought to add employees in the attorney general’s office to the list of those whose addresses cannot be disclosed. Another recent bill would have changed the statutory language to make the addresses of all public employees exempt from FOIA.
Last session, a bill to require the Office of Policy and Management to study how long state agencies take to respond to FOIA was introduced.
Both bills went through GOC and were voted on favorably by the committee but died when the legislature adjourned.
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