The Connecticut General Assembly took up “emergency-certified” legislation this week, including a sweeping, 98-section bill that revived significant House bills that died last year without votes in the Senate.
Senate Bill 298 would provide earmarks and other grants to select communities and groups. But that’s not all.
The Connecticut Mirror’s reporters combed through the bill and spoke with lawmakers about what the wide-ranging provisions will do. Here’s what you need to know.
Police training
Included in the bill is a provision requiring the Police Officers Standards and Training Council to develop new curricula on interactions with people with mental illness or physical disabilities. The provision requires the council to collaborate with people who are on the autism spectrum, advocacy organizations, university experts and healthcare professionals when they are developing this curriculum.
“ I see it as a plus. It’s engagement with these various groups who are already … far along in their research of studying these things, and just bringing their information to the table,” said Sen. Herron Gaston, D-Bridgeport, co-chair of the legislature’s Public Safety and Security Committee.
The new training requirements were included in a bill that was passed through the committee last year. The bill made it through the House of Representatives but was stalled in the Senate.
According to Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, the budget approved last year includes $850,000 in 2026 and $2 million in 2027 to support the development of the training around mental illness and disabilities for police officers.
The curriculum requirements include strategies for crisis intervention and de-escalation in situations when police interact with people with mental illness or disabilities. Gaston said that when police officers aren’t aware of the behaviors that people with autism display — things like “stimming,” or making repetitive motions as a way of self-soothing — those behaviors can seem threatening or aggressive. If an officer misinterprets those behaviors, Gaston said, it could cause a situation to escalate.
Gaston and leaders in the state House of Representatives said that the killing of Everard Walker, a man who was shot by Hartford Police officers last week while he was having a mental health crisis, emphasized the urgency of adopting this legislation.
— Emilia Otte, Justice and Higher Education Reporter
Antisemitism working group
One section of the bill would establish a working group to “address antisemitism in public schools.” The working group’s task would be to propose amendments to school district policies, recommend antisemitism training and provide guidance on the creation of curricula relating to antisemitism, Jewish heritage and Holocaust and genocide awareness.
The working group’s members would be appointed by legislative leaders and would include a teacher, a school administrator, a higher education leader, a curriculum developer and two members of the Jewish Federation Association of Connecticut, JFACT.
The Freedom to Learn Coalition, which includes multiple Jewish organizations and condemns antisemitism, raised concerns that the working group could become a vehicle for suppression and censorship in the classroom. The coalition also questioned why JFACT was the only Jewish group with guaranteed appointments to the working group.
— Theo Peck-Suzuki, Education Reporter
UConn Health expansion
One measure in the bill would give the University of Connecticut Health Center a one-time pass to sidestep the approval process for major hospital transactions, like unit closures and acquisitions. The provision would allow a hospital owned by the state to add inpatient behavioral health beds without going through the state approval process, as long as the expansion occurs on or before June 30.
Democratic officials said the move is meant to ensure that UConn Health qualifies for the federal 340B drug pricing program, which requires drug manufacturers to sell steeply discounted outpatient drugs to hospitals that treat a certain proportion of low-income patients.
For such an expansion, a hospital would typically have to obtain what’s known as a “certificate of need” — a state regulatory program that requires providers to obtain state approval before making substantial changes in the health care sector, such as mergers, large purchases of equipment or facilities, or shuttering services. The process has received criticism from both sides of the aisle for its lengthiness.
Sen. Saud Anwar, co-chair of the Public Health Committee, said UConn had recently fallen “slightly below” the required threshold to qualify for 340B, and reporting is due to the federal government before June 30.
UConn Health told legislators that the state stands to lose $60 million in federal funds if the measure doesn’t go through, according to ranking member of the Public Health Committee, Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria, R-Seymour.
— Katy Golvala, Health Reporter
Warehouse workers
The emergency bill also lays out new standards around warehouse operations and giving warehouse workers more information about company quotas and biometric surveillance. The provision would apply to employers with 250 or more employees at a single warehouse distribution center or those with one thousand or more employees at centers across the state.
A previous version of the warehouse legislation, HB 6907, passed the House last year along party lines, but did not make it through the Senate. An updated version of the measure was listed as part of Gov. Ned Lamont’s agenda for the 2026 session.
Proponents of the warehouse bill said the measure, which also requires employers to provide written notice to employees on a number of work-related topics, and makes some information on quotas and employee records available to former warehouse employees, provides much needed support for labor.
“Where there is exploitation of workers it is the duty of state government to step in and be an advocate for workers who are being abused, who are being subject to quotas that are unreasonable and perhaps damaging to their health,” Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said on Wednesday.
The bill’s reemergence has rankled Republican lawmakers, who said new regulation on warehouses would target some of the state’s largest employers and insert the state into the employer-employee relationship. Several legislators specifically highlighted Amazon, which is currently building a 3.2 million square foot robotics fulfillment center on the Waterbury-Naugatuck border.
“What are we thinking, sending this message to an industry that is growing and investing in Connecticut?” Rep. Steve Weir, R-Hebron, said on Thursday.“ We all rely upon it to get our goods and services, and we’re taking a shot at that industry.”
— P.R. Lockhart, Economic Development Reporter
Earmarks
Earmarks are a relatively small piece of the bill, but they have an outsized political profile due to the FBI’s election-year investigation of how a Democratic state senator, Douglas McCrory of Hartford, influenced the delivery of state grants through earmarks.
Republicans highlighted earmarks Thursday, with House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, publicly pressing Lamont before the House debate for a veto commitment.
The bill has several million dollars in appropriations, though most involved redirecting state funds. In one case, the bill reduces a $3.25 million recreation grant for Hartford to $2.5 million. But it also dictates new spending of $330,000 for a nonprofit in Hartford, Our Piece of the Pie, and $174,000 for a VFW in New London.
It also makes changes in eligibility rules for school construction to benefit projects in Cheshire and Middlefield.
— Mark Pazniokas, Capitol Bureau Chief
Building codes
S.B. 298 also included a measure to repeal a 2024 law that would have changed state building code to allow only one stairway as an exit in some residential buildings after fierce opposition from fire officials.
The original measure required the next state building code to allow a single stairway as a means of egress in small residential buildings and passed as part of the 2024 bond package. The state’s Codes and Standards Committee, which reviews changes to building and fire codes, negotiated with local fire officials and approved a measure late last year that would allow single stairs for buildings of up to four stories.
Current state building code allows for single stairs in buildings with up to three stories.
Fire officials opposed the change, saying it wouldn’t be safe for building residents or first responders, and ultimately the change didn’t have the support it needed to pass the Legislative Regulation Review Committee. Rather than risk not passing the entire building code, state officials opted to withdraw the change.
Supporters of single-stair legislation say that it makes it easier to build more housing on smaller lot sizes and that modern technology such as fire-resistant construction materials and sprinkler systems make it safe.
— Ginny Monk, Housing and Children’s Issues Reporter
Voting
The bill makes a variety of modifications to early voting regulations, including requiring ballots cast early to be stored in a voting tabulator rather than in a ballot envelope, changing some of the procedures around designating locations for early voting and same-day registration and changing some of the requirements for moderators.
The bill also prohibits voter registration information from being used for “personal, private or commercial purposes, including harassment … of a voter or voter’s household.” The legislation expressly bars the sharing of a person’s full birthdate, saying that only the birth year may be shared. It also allows people to request that their names and addresses not be shared if they submit a signed statement saying that releasing that information would put the person or their family at risk.
Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said the provision was related to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against Connecticut and 22 other states demanding that the states provide the federal government with all of their voter registration data. Duff said the federal government could use the information to intimidate or suppress voters, or for immigration enforcement purposes.
Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas has refused to give the federal government a version of voter registration data including people’s social security numbers or driver’s license numbers, which current state law prohibits sharing.
Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco, R-Wolcott, criticized the bill on Thursday, saying it does “nothing to protect the integrity of our elections.” Mastrofrancesco proposed an amendment that would require people to present a photo ID in order to vote, and would require background checks for moderators to ensure that they had not previously been convicted of a felony like fraud, larceny or embezzlement.
Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, countered that between eight and nine percent of people do not have a valid photo ID, and that in-person impersonation voter fraud was rare.
— Emilia Otte, Justice and Higher Education Reporter
Child support
Another provision that provoked debate on the floor would remove a 20-year-old prohibition on judges to modify child support payments owed by people who are incarcerated on a domestic violence charge.
Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, said that the legislature was making the change because of a letter the state received from the Trump administration threatening to hold back federal funds in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program — about $240 million. Lesser said the administration also threatened to cut them off from federal child support payments totaling about $63 million.
Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, pushed back against Lesser’s argument, saying that the federal regulation on child support modifications for incarcerated people that runs counter to Connecticut’s law was created in 2016, and that the state has not lost any federal money over the course of the last decade. An amendment he proposed to remove the provision from the bill failed on party lines.
— Emilia Otte, Justice and Higher Education Reporter
Education provisions
The bill directs the State Board of Education to provide curriculum materials on “Islamic and Arab studies” to local and regional school districts. It’s the latest in a long list of subjects the board helps schools implement, ranging from the Holocaust and genocide education to personal finance to CPR training.
The bill also adjusts a recent law that set the minimum age for Kindergarten at 5 years old. Currently, parents who want to enroll kids younger than 5 in Kindergarten must submit a written request, after which the school principal assesses the child’s developmental readiness. Under the bill, that process is limited to schools where the board of education has adopted an early admission policy.
There’s also a minor tweak to out-of-school suspensions for younger children (preschool through second grade). Previously, schools could suspend students at this age for conduct involving “physical harm.” The bill adds an adjective: Now, it’s “serious physical harm.” Critics have said out-of-school suspensions in general are harmful and should be used only in cases where physical safety is at risk.
— Theo Peck-Suzuki, Education Reporter