CONNECTICUT, USA — Some new laws and changes to existing laws will go into effect on October 1. From online data privacy for minors, to PFAs restrictions, here's what's changing beginning October 1.
For a complete list, head to the Connecticut General Assembly website.
Online privacy and data
Parts of this act have been in effect for over a year. The most recent change happened on July 1, which required social media platforms to unpublish a minor's social media account within 15 business days and generally delete the account within 45 business days after they get an authenticated request.
Beginning Oct. 1, the act establishes a framework and sets requirements for how controllers who offer online services, products, and other services will manage, process, and obtain consent to use the personal data of minors.
Under the act, a controller with minors for customers must use "reasonable care" to avoid causing any "heightened risk of harm" to minors.
This means any processing of minors' data, including in a way that presents any foreseeable risk, including unfair or deceptive treatment of minors, financial, physical, or reputational injury, or physical or other intrusion on a minor's solitude, seclusion, privacy, if someone would be offended by the intrusion.
The act also prohibits a controller from taking specific actions without the minor's consent or, if the minor is younger than 13, the minor's parent or legal guardian's consent. This includes collecting their geolocation and other personal data.
Dog Racing
This act repeals the state statutes that authorized dog tracks and dog racing in Connecticut. It also explicitly allows off-track betting operators to conduct betting on out-of-state dog races.
The previous law generally prohibited the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) from issuing any new license to conduct dog racing.
The act repeals provisions on the tax and takeout rates for bets at dog racing facilities, fees imposed on dog races to fund chronic gambling rehab programs, and bans smoking and vaping at dog race tracks.
There has not been an active dog racetrack in Connecticut since 2006.
Paid Family Leave
The paid family leave insurance law (PFMLI) is an employee-funded program that provides up to 12 weeks of partial wage replacement benefits to employees on unpaid leave from employment (e.g., the birth of a child or a serious health condition) or the family violence leave law (e.g., to obtain victim services or relocate.)
This act now codifies requirements for employers to register with and submit reports to the PFMLI Authority, which administers the program. It also sets a process for the authority to recover benefit overpayments and penalties.
The act also allows Gov. Ned Lamont to enter into an agreement with the state's federally recognized tribes to allow employees of the tribe or any tribally owned business to participate in PFMLI.
Claimants can receive PFMLI benefits concurrently with benefits from the state's Victim Compensation Program within certain limitations, and the act also broadens the state's family violence leave law to allow leave for sexual assault victims.
Invasive Plants
This is for the gardeners and landscapers out there: Seven new invasive plants have been added to the state's ban list.
By law, a violation of the ban can result in a fine of up to $100 per plant.
The new plants include porcelain berry, mugwort, quackgrass, Japanese angelica tree, Japanese wisteria, and Chinese wisteria. The act bans anyone from importing, moving, selling, purchasing, transplanting, cultivating, or distributing the plants. There are exceptions made for research or educational purposes. Those actions are also banned for the reproductive portions of the plants, including seeds, flowers, roots, tubers, etc.
Home Health Safety
Beginning Oct. 1, the state will make various changes regarding home health care and home health aide worker safety.
Home health care and home health aide agencies will now be required to collect certain information during client intake and give it to any employee assigned to the client. This specifically includes any history of violence against healthcare workers, domestic abuse, or substance use. It also includes whether the client has any psychiatric history and whether the diagnoses or symptoms have been stable over time. The information also must include any violent acts involving the client from judicial records or from any sex offender registry.
This client information bust also details the service location, including the municipality's crime rate, presence of hazardous materials, firearms or other weapons, or other safety hazards.
The act requires the agencies to annually review the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) report to collect related data for the locations.
Notably, the act prohibits agencies from denying services to a client solely based on the collected information or the client's inability or refusal to give it.
The act also requires the agencies to conduct monthly safety assessments with direct care staff and comply with specific workplace safety-related training requirements. The agencies' Medicaid reimbursement is conditioned on complying with the training. It will also allow the Department of Social Services (DSS) to give these agencies a Medicaid rate enhancement for timely reporting of workplace violence incidents.
There is also a requirement that these home health agencies, beginning in 2025, will have to annually report to the Department of Public Health (DPH) on each instance of a client's verbal abuse that an agency's staff member perceives as a threat or danger, physical or sexual abuse, or any other client abuse of a staff member.
The agencies must also report their actions to ensure the affected staff member's safety.
RELATED: Murder of Joyce Grayson leads to safety enhancements for Connecticut home healthcare workers
Development Corridors
A new act will increase the number of Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr. Corridors in the state from three to seven, as designated by the banking commissioner.
These corridors in the state are to promote secured and unsecured lending to stimulate economic development.
In 2016, the banking commissioner was given the authority to the designations. They had set up a process requiring applications for the designation to show proof of an MLK roadway in the proposed corridor, describe the area's condition, explain how it will benefit the area, and provide actionable steps for implementing it.
The commissioner had selected corridors in Middletown, New Britain, and Norwalk.
Ballistics Network
This act will conform law to practice by requiring DESPP's Division of Scientific Services to participate in the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) databank.
Connecticut's prior law required the division to use a computer-based firearms evidence databank they had established.
NIBIN is an interstate automated ballistic imaging network that automates evaluations and is maintained by the ATF.
Prior law generally allowed a police department to submit any handgun that came into its custody during a criminal investigation. Now, the act instead requires law enforcement to submit firearms that come into police custody during a criminal investigation, or any fired components of ammunition from the guns, to the laboratory or, if allowed by the lab, to test fire the guns as soon as practicable and submit the results to NIBIN.
Additional law enforcement agencies, not just the police department, will now be subject to the databank-related provisions. The act also requires any law enforcement units that recover any spent cartridge from a scene to submit an exam of the cartridge case to NIBIN as soon as practicable.
Finally, the act makes various minor and technical changes, including requiring laboratory personnel to use the NIBIN database following federal procedures.
Department of Transportation
A new act will make various changes to existing transportation-related laws beginning Oct. 1.
The act will increase the maximum fine for any person, firm, or corporation that doesn't comply with certain traffic control and road safety orders from $5,000 to $10,000. Under existing law, a violator is also imprisoned for up to 30 days and can have their license or vehicle registration suspended or revoked.
This act also allows the Department of Transportation (CT DOT) to set variable speed limits (temporarily lower the posted speed limit) on limited-access highways. It can do it to address traffic congestion, road construction or other conditions.
Under the act, a variable speed limit has to be based on an engineering investigation, no less than 10 mph below the already posted speed limit, and whenever it's posted, it will be accompanied by a sign around 500-1,000 feet before it takes place.
Other parts of this act have already been in place since July. To read more, head here.
PFAs
Beginning Oct. 1, a new law will ban the use, sale, or offering to sell biosolids (i.e., residue from treating domestic sewage) or wastewater sludge containing PFAs.
The act will generally regulate the sale and use of certain products that contain PFAs, otherwise known as "forever chemicals." The commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) will enforce the provisions. They can also coordinate with agriculture, consumer protection, and public health commissioners.
The implementation of this act will take years. To read more about what's ahead for the use of PFAS in certain products, head here.
Police or Volunteer Rescue Dogs
This new act will require anyone convicted of intentionally injuring or killing a peace officer's animal or a volunteer canon search and rescue team's dog to pay restitution to the animal's owner.
Under the law that already is in place, which already imposes penalties for these actions, the animal must have been killed or injured while performing its duties under the supervision of a search and rescue member or a peace officer.
In addition to any fine or prison under existing law, the act will also require restitution to be paid to the law enforcement unit, entity, or person that owns the animal.
This restitution can include the cost of veterinary expenses and the costs and expenses of purchasing and training a replacement.
By law, intentionally injuring these animals is a class D felony and can be punishable by up to 10 years in prison, up to a $10,000 fine, or both.
Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program
The Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program will undergo various changes beginning Oct. 1.
This state-funded loan program helps homeowners make mortgage, specific lien, or condominium assessment payments.
The act can expand program eligibility by redefining "aggregate family income" to consider the total income of only the adults in the home when determining financial hardship.
The act will also remove utility and heating expenses from the total housing expense calculation, which will allow for program participation.
CHFA can also use equity as evidence of a homeowner's ability to repay mortgage assistance. CHFA can also make lump sum emergency mortgage payments to lenders, giving the authority other flexibility in making program payments.
The act will also authorize CHFA to adopt procedures to set an aggregate limit on the amount of emergency mortgage assistance payments that a homeowner may receive.
Finally, the act specifies that the CHFA must post on the website the funding availability-related notices that the law requires it to give to lenders.
Cannabis and Hemp Regulations
Beginning Oct. 1, any municipality, by legislative vote, can prohibit any business from operating within the municipality if the business is found to be illegally selling, offering, or delivering cannabis.
If a municipality's chief executive officer determines that a business is operating in this way, they can apply to the Superior Court for an order to take specific merchandise from the business.
If the court finds that the business was in violation or posed a threat to safety, it can issue an order without a hearing directing the officer to seize any merchandise related to the violation.
Also, beginning Oct. 1, a violator of the law on selling, offering, or delivering cannabis must be assessed a civil fine of $30,000 for each violation.
Anyone who aids or abets the violations can also be assessed a $30,000 civil fine.
The act also imposes a $10,000 fine for each violation by anyone who manages or controls a commercial property and knowingly makes the area available for use in these violations.
When it comes to the sale of cannabis-infused drinks, the act prohibits anyone from selling or offering for sale any cannabis-infused beverages in any container that's less than 12 fluid ounces or that comes in packages that have more than four containers.
Finally, the act simplifies the THC threshold for determining when it's considered a high-THC hemp product and classified as marijuana or cannabis that would be subject to various licensing and regulatory requirements.
Veteran License Plates
Beginning Oct. 1, eligible former reservists or their surviving spouses can get a veteran license plate. This act also allows an eligible former reservist (but not a surviving spouse) to receive a veteran designation on their driver's license or ID card.
Under the previous law, only veterans, current service members, and surviving spouses could generally get the designation and the plate.
An eligible former reservist is any person who served in the National Guard or a reserve component of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, or Air Force and was discharged honorably, under honorable conditions, or with an "other than honorable" discharge.
To get the benefits, the former reservist or surviving spouse has to submit a verification request and all available official documentation of the reservist's service to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
For the driver's license or identification card designations, this includes documentation for discharge or release from service.
This act specifies that getting the benefits and being verified by the DVA does not establish proof of eligibility for any other veterans' benefits.
Opioid Screening
Hospitals that treat a patient for a nonfatal opioid drug overdose will be required to administer a toxicology screening if it is medically appropriate and the patient consents.
The screening must test for opiates, opioids, benzodiazepines, cannabinoids, methadone, cocaine, gabapentin, xylazine, and other substances DPH considers appropriate.
Hospitals must conduct the toxicology screening for three-and-a-half years, from Jan. 1, 2025, to Aug. 31, 2028. The results must be reported to DPH as the commissioner prescribes.
The act also requires the DPH commissioner to report to the Public Health Committee on the toxicology screening results by January 1, 2026, and then annually after that to January 2029.
The report has to identify and analyze any trends, identify any benefits patients experienced due to the screening results when they sought emergency care, and recommend whether or not hospitals should continue the screening reporting after the August 2028 date.
The results that hospitals report to DPH are confidential under the law and not subject to disclosure, are not admissible as evidence in court, and can only be used solely for medical or scientific research or disease control and prevention.
State Insect
This act designates the Siberian Husky as the state dog and the lollipop as the state candy!
This act will also create a working group that will study the idea of redesignating the state insect, which is currently the praying mantis.
The working group must study the reasons for keeping or redesignating the current state insect and consider potential alternatives that are native to the state, such as the spring azure bitterly and autumn meadowhawk dragonfly.
The group will report its findings and recommendations to the Government Administration and Elections Committee by Feb. 15, 2025.
The report has to include a recommendation on whether to redesignate the current state insect and, if so, which insect and why.
RELATED: Students lobby to dethrone Connecticut's state insect, the voraciously predatory praying mantis
Election-related Crimes
By law, the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) receives complaints about alleged election law violations. The commission investigates and holds hearings as it deems appropriate and can refer to the chief state's attorney for any possible criminal prosecution.
This new law, in certain circumstances, extends the time period during which an alleged election law violation that's referred from SEEC may be prosecuted.
Specifically, it allows prosecution during the existing statute of limitations period or six months from when the SEEC referred the complaint to the state's attorney - whichever period ends later.
The statute of limitations varies based on the offense committed.
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These aren't the only updates to state law that will be taking place on October 1. For more details and information, head to the Connecticut General Assembly's website here.
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Jennifer Glatz is a digital content producer at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jglatz@fox61.com.
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