Car taxes, drones and ICE: CT House advances 2 bills that cover several key issues

CT Insider – Monday, February 24, 2025
By Ken Dixon

HARTFORD — The Democrat-dominated state House of Representatives Monday night approved a variety of legislation combined into two bills affecting diverse subjects, including the LGBTQ+ community, special education, health care, motor vehicle taxes and even drones made in China, among other things.

The legislation, which heads to the Senate on Tuesday, would also grant about $40 million for new special education funding, which drew criticism from the governor’s budget chief on Monday afternoon, warning that it could be a budget-buster.

One section of the legislation would rewrite law to make it easier for state universities to pay their student-athletes under the nation’s emerging “name, image and likeness” rules, to allow universities to raise a maximum $20.5 million in private funding and make them more attractive to top athletes and high school recruits seeking undergraduate compensation.

Democrats also revamped state law to make it easier for the purchase of three medical facilities, including Waterbury, Manchester Memorial, and Rockville General hospitals by Yale New Haven Health or another entity; adopt new rules on aerial drones that would start phasing-out Chinese-made equipment starting October 2028; and provide grants totaling $2.8 million for 26 nonprofit groups, including $800,000 for Planned Parenthood of Southern New England to continue reproductive services for clients, including abortion.

Debate started at 5:30 p.m. By 8 p.m., the first piece of legislation passed, mostly along party lines, 94-49. The legislation includes an exemption of local property taxes for veterans who are 100 percent disabled, in an attempt to rewrite law that local veterans and tax officials have had trouble interpreting over the last year.

Also included in the legislation is a section that would give towns and cities the option to revise depreciation schedules for motor vehicles. Last year state lawmakers changed the way assessors establish the value of motor vehicles and some towns have seen their grand lists of taxable property drop drastically, lawmakers said.

The following is included in proposed legislation:

Yale purchase of Prospect Medical Holdings, Inc.

The California-based for-profit Prospect Medical Holdings, which has filed for bankruptcy in a Texas court, owns Waterbury, Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals. It has been involved in negotiations with Yale New Haven Health, which is trying to acquire the three hospitals and their various holdings. The two parties have filed lawsuits against each other over the last year, primarily focused on the purchase price and value of the properties. Prospect recently outlined a process that could see its Connecticut hospitals sold at auction. Prospect reported an $86.4 million operating loss for the 2022-23 fiscal year — the highest loss total of any hospital system in the state.

Gov. Ned Lamont has tried in recent years to expedite the sale of the hospitals. A state certificate of need, also known as a CON, must be granted by the state Office of Health Strategy (OHS) before any purchase or closure of a medical facility can take place. The proposed legislation would allow entities involved in bankruptcy to apply for an emergency certificate of need from the OHS commissioner in order to speed up the process even if Yale drops its bid to acquire three Prospect hospitals.

The bill would require sales of hospitals to be completed within 60 days, after an expedited review process. “We need to understand the effects of that transfer of ownership,” said Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey, D-Fairfield, co-chairwoman of the legislative Public Health Committee.

LGBTQ+, Planned Parenthood, immigrant groups

Organizations representing immigrants and LGBTQ+ organizations would receive more than $1.3 million, mostly in grants of about $62,500 for organizations such as the Circle Care Center in Norwalk and Glastonbury, at a time when President Donald Trump is on the offensive against such organizations.

“These are basic human rights for people,” said House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford. “They’re serving people who are literally directly under attack right now. These are people who are trying to provide services to some of our most vulnerable kids, young people and adults. We felt it was appropriate to provide some funding.”

Another section of one of the bills, scheduled to be debated under the General Assembly’s emergency rules, would require public schools to designate an administrator or teacher to personally meet with any Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in schools and ask them for proper identification and warrants.

“I’m not aware of ICE going into a schools,” said Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, to reporters. “If it does happen, you can imagine how scary that’s going to be for a child. We want to make sure best practices are followed. People are under attack at the federal level. Immigration resettlement agencies; LGBTQ collectives; transgender youth. This is how I know how to fight back, is to legislate and pass laws to show your support.”

Rep. Joe Polletta, R-Watertown, warned that if ICE officials are thwarted, it could jeopardize Connecticut’s federal funding. State Rep. Tom O’Dea, R-New Canaan, asked whether the nonprofits had already experienced cuts in federal support and Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, a proponent of the legislation, confirmed it.

“My concern is that we jeopardize federal funding by providing this funding,” O’Dea replied. “I’m wondering are we risking money?”

“If that does happen we will address it,” Walker said. “We are doing everything by the book. This is going to hopefully help them until we get some legal action in place for people who are isolated in our country.”

“Giving more taxpayer money, even one cent, let alone $800,000 to those in the abortion business, is truly tragic,” said Chris Healy, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Public Affairs Conference. “We can only pray for those in power to reject this horrible idea.” Healy charged that lawmakers were avoiding the normal committee process to transfer the funding to Planned Parenthood, which he said received $3 million in state funds last year.

“Planned Parenthood is rolling in money, yet they are turning to Connecticut taxpayers to pay for services many find morally objectionable and simply wrong,” Healy said.

“Of course Chris Healy would say that, because he represents the Catholic church,” said Rojas during a pre-session meeting with reporters.

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said Tuesday that top managers at Planned Parenthood make salaries in excess of $200,000.

“Things aren’t good for non-profits in general but we should be more prescriptive,” Candelora said in a phone interview. “Planned Parenthood gets state Medicaid dollars and they were given about $500,000 in the fall. We need to understand where this money is going to. There are a number of $62,500 grants. This reeks of being a political document. The spending pieces are problematic and other things are bad policy.”

“By the way, reproductive services are legal here in the state of Connecticut,” Ritter told reporters. “And that’s not changing anytime soon, ever.”

Candelora said there are already procedures in schools for administrators to deal with ICE, including new guidelines that began in January. He said it might amount to an unfunded mandate for local schools to carry out new state rules that would force school attorneys to review and write local policies.

O’Dea submitted an amendment that would restrict state athletics to participants whose gender was assigned at birth, barring transgender girls from girls sports. Connecticut allows high school athletes to compete in the gender they identify with. The amendment was defeated by Democrats 89-49.

Another failed GOP amendment would have required detailed financial records of nonprofit organization that get state funding. Walker said they are already reporting requirements. “It would be a waste of our time to go through each one,” Walker said. “We would never go home.” The amendment died 95-47.

Special education funding

Last week, Democrats who have large majorities in both the House and Senate announced their plan to use $40 million of the $390 million surplus in the current budget that runs through June 30, to increase support for special education in the current school year.

“The co-equal branch of government in charge of appropriating funding has rightfully determined that we have the fiscal ability to support special education with an immediate infusion of $40 million,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney of New Haven and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff of Norwalk in a joint statement. “Room in the budget exists and the legislature has the full authority to spend it. This is Connecticut, not Washington, D.C.”

Nuccio said that the actual special education need is $108 million. She introduced an amendment to expand the funding by that amount, essentially doubling and tripling the supplement. She read an alphabetical litany of a couple dozen towns, then was interrupted and asked to cease the town-by-town listing. The amendment failed 96-48, but the larger bill passed 140-5.

Jeffrey Beckham, who as secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management is Lamont’s budget chief, said that the $40 million is problematic at a time when there are a number of budget lines that are in deficit.

“We have to cover those deficiencies with lapses or new appropriations,” Beckham wrote in a late-afternoon statement.

“The General Assembly is incurring new bills when we have not yet arranged to pay our current bills. The time to have made additions to spending this year was last session. The General Assembly declined to make such adjustments. It is too late to do so now in an intelligent and thoughtful manner consistent with the Constitutional and statutory requirements for honest budgeting.”

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