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June 24, 2024

CT special legislative session will impact banks, insurers, water companies and developers

HBJ Photo | Skyler Frazer Gov. Ned Lamont speaks to media in his office after the 2024 legislative session in May.
By Skyler Frazer

Lawmakers will meet later this week for a special legislative session to address a concern from municipalities that would impact tax receipts for residents across the state.

Gov. Ned Lamont, state Sen. Pro Tempore Martin Looney (D-New Haven) and Speaker of the House Rep. Matt Ritter (D-Hartford) announced the agreed upon schedule for the special session, which is set to begin Wednesday. At the top of the agenda is a bill that aims to prevent a motor vehicle tax increase that is currently scheduled to go into effect this fall.

The goal of the changes legislators will make during the special session, Lamont’s office said, is to prevent these tax increases by continuing to classify commercial vehicles as motor vehicles and clarify that municipalities are allowed to establish mill rates on motor vehicles that are lower than mill rates on real property and personal property other than motor vehicles.

The item has been discussed for a special session for weeks following the 2024’s session adjournment May 8. 

“There are certain statutory changes that are scheduled to take effect over the coming months that we believe should be adjusted to protect the public from tax increases,” Lamont, Looney and Ritter said in a joint statement. “We are scheduling this particular special session now so that we can prevent that tax increase and get other minor and timely adjustments signed into law.”

In addition to the motor vehicle tax, the special session will include discussions about:

  • Streamlining the process by which the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) reviews properties. Last year, the legislature created a SHPO working group to assess the process of how properties are reviewed in response to complaints by some developers and municipal officials who say the decision-making process by the SHPO is sometimes too burdensome and unpredictable and can significantly delay or even block economic development projects.
  • Restoring a ban on construction managers self-performing subcontracting work for school construction projects.
  • Allowing banks holding a certain charter to accept and hold non-retail deposits and secure deposit insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
  • Reducing the administrative costs of the state’s publicly available retirement savings program by authorizing the State Comptroller to enter into cooperative agreements with other states that have similar programs.
  • Establishing that the annual assessment on domestic insurance companies to fund certain insurance-related state offices and programs should be calculated based on those companies’ total taxes, prior to any adjustment for tax credits, from the year immediately preceding the prior calendar year instead of the prior calendar year itself.
  • Relieving employers, including tax-exempt organizations, that kept employees on payroll throughout the pandemic and received the federal Employee Retention Credit from the burden of interest payments attributable to the timing and complexities of the program rather than any willful underpayment.
  • Amending the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority to permit the group to acquire water companies outside its current service area.

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