A ‘catch all’ bill introduced during the legislature’s special session will limit how personal information collected by state agencies can be released by public agencies, though it does not implicate the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

A provision in the bill would prohibit employees of public agencies as defined under FOIA from disclosing “an individual’s personal information that is not a matter of public record to any other individual or entity that is not a public agency or employee.” The bill specifically includes addresses, workplaces and hours of work, school or school hours, information in employee’s calendars about when they have appointments, or any other information about where they will be located and when in the personal information that public agencies are prohibited from releasing about public employees.

While access to public employees’ residential addresses has been a contentious issue in number years and a number of bills have sought to make this information exempt from disclosure under FOIA, HB 8004 does not seem likely to affect that disclosure. The bill specifically states that if there is conflict between its provisions and FOIA, FOIA will prevail.

Under the provision, there are some situations where agencies can release personal information, including with the approval of the individual, if releasing that information is necessary in a criminal investigation where the individuals is a possible match in a federal terrorism database, or if it is otherwise required by state or federal law.

The bill also allows the attorney general to bring legal action against a public employee or agency who violates the provision.

The provision is a reaction to the federal government’s use of state-collected data to further its crackdown on immigration. Lamont’s proclamation announcing the special session says of the provision that “the protection of personal information held by state and local agencies is vital to public trust, and clarification is needed to restrict the disclosure of such information to federal authorities, except as required by state and federal law, judicial warrant, or court order.”

Attorney General William Tong’s office has taken a number of actions to stop the federal government from accessing data collected by the state, including data collected for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The bill will expand those efforts and prevent agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles from sharing personal information individuals must share in order to obtain a driver’s license or identification from being passed on to immigration officials or the federal government.

That provision is one of many in the ‘catch all’ bill currently being considered by legislators in a special session, which covers children’s behavioral health, a change to redistricting requested by the Secretary of the State’s (SOS) office, and also codifies a policy the Judicial Branch put in place earlier this year that limits how immigration arrests can be carried out in courthouses.

The special session, which convened when the House met on November 12, was called by Gov. Ned Lamont in a proclamation announcing an urgent need to address a number of issues, including to make funds available to address changes to how the state receives funding from federal programs in HR 1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), and in response to the federal government shutdown.

The legislature will vote on transferring $500 million to the Budget Reserve Fund, or “rainy day fund,” and temporarily increase it above the statutory cap of 18 percent of appropriations for the current fiscal year. The governor’s ability to spend the money would expire when the legislature reconvenes in February 2026, but Lamont’s declaration of extraordinary circumstances, required in order to skirt the 18 percent cap, states his Office of Management and Budget needs the authority until then to “immediately respond” to federal actions.

Another bill, HB 8001, authorizes the University of Connecticut Health Center to takeover Waterbury Hospital. HB 8002 is a revision of HB 5002, the controversial housing bill that the legislature passed during the regular session but which Lamont vetoed.

HB 8004, the catch all bill, also includes a redistricting change asked for by the SOS’ office, which requires any entity that adopts a redistricting plan to provide the SOS all map, statistical, voting, and district information used to draw up the plan. The SOS then uses that information to update the state-wide centralized voter registration system to reflect changes to district lines, and to send that information to registrars of voters to do the same. If there are any errors identified by the SOS, that offices notifies registrars of voters, who in turn notify any voters whose polling places are changed by correcting the error.

HB 8004 also includes a number of measures related to children’s behavioral healthcare, including:

• a directive for the Transforming Children’s Behavioral Health Policy and Planning Committee to conduct a study on demand for various children’s behavioral health services and for the committee to survey data collection practices and challenges for school-based health centers
• plans for a grant program for children’s behavioral health programs, using federal funds through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, for care coordination and resource navigation
• a requirement that the Department of Social Services review Yale’s Intensive In-Home Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services
• raising the age until which insurance companies must cover certain treatments for autism, including applied behavioral analysis and cognitive behavioral therapy, to 26
• a directive for the Transforming Children’s Behavioral Health Policy and Planning Committee to review private health insurance coverage for the treatment of children at urgent crisis centers through a working group
• the creation of an advisory committee that advises the Council on Medical Assistance Program Oversight on the delivery of applied behavioral analysis services for children
• the addition of substance abuse treatment service providers for children to Transforming Children’s Behavioral Health Policy and Planning Committee

Additionally, the bill includes a change to the way benefits are calculated under the Temporary Family Assistance (TFA) program, which provides cash assistance to families whose income fall below the federal poverty limit and is federally funded through a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant. The bill creates a standard deduction equal to 51 percent of a family’s total monthly income from self-employment or allows a family to deduct all monthly expenses directly related to self employment earnings.

Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said during a press conference prior to the session that the change was intended to prevent the state’s error rate being to high, which can result in a loss of funding. Under federal regulations, states can use the same standard deduction for TANF funding that they use to calculate self-employment for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The OBBBA made changes to SNAP funding rules that require states to pay for part of their benefits if their error rate is too high.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Connecticut’s SNAP program had a 10.25 percent error rate in fiscal year 2024, with the majority of the errors coming from overpayments.

The bill also makes changes to a monthly five cent tax on phone lines to fund the Firefighter’s Cancer Relief Fund. The tax was passed during the 2025 regular session. The special session bill delays implementation of the tax for one-year and also removes an option for a phone services subscriber to opt out of paying the tax.

Another section in the bill codifies rules for how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can make arrests and detainements on courthouse grounds. It requires that agents be acting in their official capacity and have notified a judicial marshal in the courthouse that they plan to make a detention or arrest. It also requires that the subject of a detention or arrest order is the subject of a judicial order or is exempt from requirements in the Trust Act and bans law enforcement from hiding their identities with a mask on courthouse grounds.

Connecticut’s Trust Act limits how state and local police can cooperate in enforcing immigration detainers, generally prohibiting ICE from having access to individuals arrested on immigration detainers unless the detainer is accompanied by a judicial warrant, the individual has committed a class A or B felony, or has been flagged in a federal terrorism database.

This section of the bill codifies in statute changes that Connecticut Supreme Court Chief Justice Raheem Mullins put in place earlier this year.

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