June 18, 2014

Acts Affecting People with Disabilities

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Since my election two years ago, I have been dedicated to fighting for people who might not otherwise have a voice at the state legislature. I am co-chairman to the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD) Caucus, board member at Torrington’s Prime Time House and a longtime supporter of the Special Olympics.

You should know about a number of laws that passed the Connecticut General Assembly during this year’s session. These outlined laws specifically affect people with disabilities.

Department of Developmental Services (DDS) Abuse and Neglect Registry

This law (Public Act 14-165) expands DDS’ abuse and neglect registry definition of abuse to include financial exploitation and psychological, verbal, and sexual abuse. By law, DDS maintains a registry of anyone who was employed by DDS or an organization that DDS licenses or funds, and fired from his or her job because of a substantiated complaint of abuse or neglect.

This law also grants specific authority to DDS to investigate reports of abuse of individuals ages 18 to 60 with autism spectrum disorder receiving services from DDS’s Division of Autism Spectrum Disorder Services. It also establishes a process for DDS to follow when conducting such investigations.

Serving People with Down Syndrome

In Section 3 of Public Act 14-194 the DDS commissioner is required to mandate that all residential facilities serving people age 50 or older with Down Syndrome have at least one employee trained in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia symptoms and care.

Special Education Students Enrolled in Kindergarten

By law, a local or regional board of education must, whenever a child has been identified as requiring special education, immediately inform parents or guardians of the laws relating to special education and their rights under those laws. Public Act 14-39 requires the information to include explicit notice of a parent’s or guardian’s right, under existing law, to withhold a child age five from enrolling in kindergarten until age six, and six from enrolling until age seven.

Rental Rebate Program

This act (Public Act 14-217) restores the state’s rental rebate program for the elderly and people with total and permanent disabilities to its status prior to July 1, 2013 by returning administration of the rental rebate program from the Department of Housing to the Office of Policy and Management (OPM), eliminating the requirement that eligible rebate applicants must have received a rebate in calendar year 2011, and making numerous conforming changes. Additionally, under the act, if the OPM secretary determines a renter was overpaid, he may reduce the amount of subsequent rebates to recoup the amount of the overpayment. Aggrieved claimants have the right to appeal the secretary’s decision.

These are just some of the important laws applying to people with disabilities. If you want to go through the entire report yourself, feel free to do so by clicking here. Each law has a brief explanation and a link to the text of the legislation.