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OLR Bill Analysis
sSB 1209
AN ACT PROHIBITING THE DISCLOSURE OF THE RESIDENTIAL
ADDRESS OF PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS UNDER THE
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT AND ESTABLISHING A TASK
FORCE TO STUDY RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS DISCLOSURE
EXEMPTIONS UNDER SAID ACT.
SUMMARY
This bill adds teachers employed by a local or regional board of
education (BOEs) to the list of individuals covered by the Freedom of
Information Act’s (FOIA) limitation on disclosing home addresses (see
BACKGROUND). In doing so, it prohibits a BOE from disclosing, under
FOIA, a teacher’s home address from the BOE’s personnel, medical, or
similar files. It also allows the teachers to request address confidentiality
from other public agencies (and from their BOE with respect to records
besides those described above). To do so, the teacher must follow
existing law’s procedures for other covered individuals, including by
submitting to the agency a written request with his or her business
address.
Additionally, the bill establishes a task force to study FOIA’s current
exemption from disclosing the home addresses of certain public
employees. The task force must consider whether the exemption should
be expanded to include additional employees and submit a report with
its findings and recommendations to the Government Oversight
Committee by February 1, 2026. The task force ends on that date or when
it submits the report, whichever is later.
EFFECTIVE DATE: October 1, 2025 , except that provisions
establishing the task force are effective upon passage.
TASK FORCE MEMBERSHIP AND ADMI NISTRATION
Under the bill, the task force has the following six ex officio members,
or their designees: the Freedom of Information Commission’s executive 2025SB-01209-R000483-BA.DOCX
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director, the attorney general, the secretary of the state, the
administrative services commissioner, the emergency services and
public protection commissioner, and the chief court administrator. The
task force also includes the eight appointed members shown in the table
below.
Table: Appointed Task Force Members
Appointing Authority
Number of
Appointments
Required Qualifications
House Speaker 2
• Represents registrars of voters
• Represents town clerks
Senate president pro
tempore
2
• Represents educators
• Unspecified
House majority leader 1 • Represents journalists
Senate majority leader 1
• Represents an organization that
supports efforts to protect civil
liberties
House minority leader 1 • Represents municipalities
Senate minority leader 1
• Represents an organization
interested in issues related to FOIA
Under the bill, all initial appointments must be made by August 1,
2025, and the appointed task force members may be legislators.
Appointing authorities must fill any vacancies. The House speaker and
Senate president pro tempore must pick the task force’s chairpersons
from among its members. The chairpersons must schedule and hold the
first meeting by October 1, 2025. The Government Oversight
Committee’s administrative staff must serve as the task force’s
administrative staff.
BACKGROUND
Covered Individuals
Under existing law, the following public officials and employees,
among others, are covered by FOIA’s home address disclosure
limitation:
1. Connecticut judges and family support magistrates, judicial
branch employees, prosecutors, public defenders, public
defender social workers, and Division of Criminal Justice 2025SB-01209-R000483-BA.DOCX
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inspectors;
2. Firefighters, state marshals, and police officers;
3. Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services employees
who provide direct patient care, and employees of the
departments of Correction and Children and Families; and
4. members and employees of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and
the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.
Requests for Home Address Confidentiality
Under existing law, unchanged by the bill, an agency that receives a
FOIA request about a covered individual who requested address
confidentiality must redact the person’s home address only from
records provided in response to a request that specifically names him or
her. Additionally, the agency must make reasonable efforts to redact the
person’s address from (1) an existing list derived from a readily
accessible electronic database and (2) any list that the agency voluntarily
creates in response to a disclosure request. The law permits disclosure
of a covered individual’s residential address in any other type of record
(other than in their employer’s personnel, medical, or similar files, as
described above). The disclosure prohibition also does not apply to a
teacher’s home address in (1) documents eligible to be recorded in
municipal land records; (2) any list required by the state’s election laws
(e.g., voter registry lists, petition forms, and logs of absentee ballot
applications); or (3) municipal grand lists.
Related Bills
SB 1226 (File 125), favorably reported by the Government
Administration and Elections (GAE) Committee, generally exempts
from disclosure under FOIA records maintained or kept by or for public
higher education institution faculty or staff arising out of teaching or
research on medical, artistic, scientific, legal, or other scholarly issues.
SB 1233 (File 131), favorably reported by the GAE Committee,
generally exempts from disclosure under FOIA the name and address
of the person reporting an incident involving alleged bigotry or bias, 2025SB-01209-R000483-BA.DOCX
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and the alleged offender, in reports to law enforcement or a database for
reporting these allegations established by UConn’s Institute for
Municipal and Regional Policy.
SB 1433 (File 296), favorably reported by the GAE Committee, (1)
adds Office of the Attorney General employees to the list of individuals
covered by FOIA’s limitation on disclosing home addresses and (2)
extends to them provisions in existing law that allow covered
individuals to also request home address confidentiality for other types
of records.
HB 6883 (File 82), favorably reported by the Government Oversight
Committee, (1) exempts any information indicating the location of a
shelter or transitional housing for sexual assault victims from disclosure
required under FOIA and (2) requires a public agency meeting’s
discussion about them to be held in executive session if it would reveal
the shelter’s or housing’s location.
HB 6850 (File 146), favorably reported by the GAE Committee,
generally (1) expands FOIA’s limitation on disclosing a home address in
an agency’s personnel, medical, or similar files to generally cover all of
the agency’s employees, rather than just specified groups of employees
and individuals (e.g., certain judges and police officers); and (2) extends
to all public agency employees provisions in existing law that allow
covered individuals to also request home address confidentiality for
other types of records.
COMMITTEE ACTION
Government Oversight Committee
Joint Favorable Substitute
Yea 8 Nay 4 (03/18/2025)