As with any new year, several new laws, or portions of laws, go into effect in Connecticut, on January 1.

Among those going into effect on Friday will be one provision of An Act Concerning Excessive Use of Force (HB 7103): grants for body camera purchases.

By January 1, the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) and Police Officer Standards and Training Council (POST) must jointly create a list of minimal technical specifications for body cameras and digital data storage devices or services.

Among its points, the act prohibits officers from recording certain activities with body cameras, allows agencies to withhold certain images from disclosure to the public, and requires DESPP and POST to develop guidelines on equipment use and data retention.

Beginning July 1, 2016, the act will require sworn officers of the state police, UConn and the state public university system, and municipal police departments receiving certain state grants under the act to use body-worn recording equipment (body cameras) while interacting with the public in their law enforcement capacity.

Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe had an elementary study of the possible deployment of patrol officer body cameras .nearly completed by March 2015

At an August 4 Newtown Police Commission meeting, Chief Kehoe termed the use of body cameras “a very important policy matter for us, and we want to do the right thing.”

Newtown Police Captain Joe Rios said the department was “looking at this very slowly and with caution.” Capt Rios noted that town police already record their interactions with motorists via dashboard-mounted forward-aimed video cameras positioned within police vehicles.

As a whole, the commission agreed that equipping town police officers with body cameras is a good idea that should be implemented locally. Town police would need to obtain between 45 and 55 body cameras, plus related equipment, Capt Rios said in August.

While the Newtown Police Union stated it was opposed to the use of body cameras, Police Commission member Joel Faxon in August predicted that the use of such equipment by police officers in Connecticut would exonerate police in the vast majority of contested cases. Using such cameras would be much more of an advantage for police than a disadvantage, he said.

The police union, which represented 43 of the 45 local police officers at that point, noted that the conduct of Newtown police is “upstanding and does not warrant such surveillance measures,” The Newtown Bee reported following that commission meeting. The union, also according to the Bee report, felt that having body cameras recording interactions between police and the public could be useful in places where the police have stained relations with minority groups, “but there are no such problems in Newtown.”

In addition, the act has a number of concerns for hiring practices. Law enforcement units will now be required to develop and implement guidelines to recruit, retain, and promote minority police officers, requires departments in an area with a high concentration of minority residents to have a complement of minority officers similar to the community’s make-up; prohibits a police unit from hiring an officer who has been dismissed, resigned, or retired from a unit for wrongdoing or serious misconduct, while also requiring that a unit (Unit A) must inform another unit (Unit B) about such a dismissal, resignation or retirement under such circumstances if Unit A knows the officer is applying for a position as a police officer with the other Unit B.

The new act now makes a peace officer liable in court or other proceedings if the officers interferes, with some exceptions, with someone taking a photo, digital still, or video image of an officer performing their duties.

Additional Acts

Among other items going into effect this weekend are five sections of An Act Strengthening the State’s Elections (Public Act 15-224), including the timing of endorsements, the selection of delegates, the publication in a local newspaper of a certified list of an election’s opponents as provided by the clerk of each municipality, how write-in candidates (whether for state, district or municipal office) are to register with the Secretary of the State, and other points.

An Act Concerning Veterans Affairs (PA 15-246/SB 903) requires the Judicial Branch to collect data on the number of Armed Forces members, veterans and non-veterans who apply for, and are admitted or denied, entry into the accelerated rehabilitation program, pretrial supervised diversionary programs for individuals with psychiatric disabilities and veterans, and/or a pretrial drug education and community service program.

An Act Concerning Health Insurance Coverage for Mental or Nervous Conditions (PA 15-226) specifies the services certain health insurance policies must cover for mental and nervous conditions (as defined in the most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). By law, a policy must cover the diagnosis and treatment of mental or nervous conditions on the same basis as medical, surgical, or other physical conditions.

An Act Concerning Hospitals, Insurers And Health Care Consumers (PA 15-146/SB 811) includes numerous provisions affecting hospitals and health systems, health care providers, and health carriers (insurers and HMOs), including the fact that as of January 1, all licensed health care providers must determine if a patient is insured prior to any scheduled non-emergency admission, procedure, or service.

In addition, the act now requires each billing statement that includes a facility fee to clearly identify the fee as being a facility fee that is either in addition to or separate from the provider’s professional fee; provide the comparable Medicare facility fee reimbursement rate for the same service; include a statement that the fee is intended to cover the operational expenses of the hospital or health system; inform the patient that their financial liability might have been less if the services had been provided at a facility not owned or operated by the hospital or health system; and include notice of the patient’s right to request a reduction in the facility fee, or any portion of the bill, as well as a telephone number for the patient to use to make that request.

Also, if a transaction materially changes the business or corporate structure of a physician group practice and establishes a hospital-based facility at which facility fees will likely be billed, the hospital or health system purchasing the practice must notify each patient the practice served in the previous three years. The purchaser must send the notice by first class mail, within 30 days after the transaction.

Additionally, based on a law passed in 2014, Connecticut’s minimum wage is scheduled to increase from the current rate of $9.15 an hour to $9.60 per hour on January 1, 2016. The change is the second in a series of three scheduled increases under the adopted legislation, which will ultimately see the state’s minimum wage increase to $10.10 on January 1, 2017.

A complete list of the 19 new laws or acts going into effect, with complete details on every section of each law, can be found at cga.ct.gov.

New legislation effective dates are typically January 1, July 1, and October 1.