All,

Last week was a bit busy with several public hearings as noted by last weeks message.  This next week appears to be about the same.  Many of the original concepts are coming out of committee and all are in a hurry to move the bills.  There was also a session in both the House & Senate on Wednesday.  The only bill activity was that H.B. #5138 was JF’d out of committee at a meeting on Friday.  That was the bill that provided for a study of the “obstacles to merging or consolidating municipal fire districts and fire departments.”  It now goes to the floor for any further action.
There are many public hearings scheduled for next week.  As of 3/2, they are listed as follows:

3/2 H.B. #5301 in Planning & Development:

3/3 H.B. #5387 and S.B. #349 in the Labor committee;  

3/4 There are no public hearings scheduled, however the House and Senate are tentatively scheduled to be in session;  

3/5 H.B. #5285, 5286, 5312, 5317, 5318, 5319, 5321, 5322, S.B. #262, 263, 265, 266, 269, and 270 in the Public Safety committee;  H.B. #5382 in Labor;  S.B. #302 in Higher Education; and S.B. #324 in Insurance; 

3/6 H.B. #5182 & S.B. #247 in Public Health;  S.B. #297 & S.B. #300 in Environment.

As you can see, Thursday will be a long busy day in Public Safety.  PLEASE look over the information provided in my bill matrix to see if any of the bills are of interest to you.  If you have an interest in any, let me know if you wish to have testimony submitted.  I expect to submit some on some bills.  As you can see, several are STUDY bills.  If passed, the General Assembly will put together a committee to study the noted issue over the summer and provide a report to the subject committee before the next session for possible action.

Please contact me via email if and questions.

Ted Schroll Jr., Legislative Representative
Connecticut State Firefighters Association