SB 455 Summary

• Requires the Chief Human Rights Referee to provide the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities with copies of complaints alleging personnel action violations and permits the Commission to appeal referee decisions (effective October 1, 2012).

• Expands protected classes under Connecticut discrimination law to explicitly include age and adds new criminal penalties for desecrating religious property, burning crosses, and placing nooses with intent to intimidate (effective October 1, 2012).

• Modifies Commission governance by defining members as "appointed" and reducing introductory training requirements from 10 hours to 5 hours, with follow-up training reduced from 5 hours to 3 hours annually (effective October 1, 2012).

• Extends non-discrimination and affirmative action protections in public contracts to veterans and active members of armed forces and modifies good faith effort standards for minority business enterprise subcontracting (effective October 1, 2012).

• Removes all references to municipalities as exceptions to state contract non-discrimination and minority business set-aside requirements, bringing municipalities under the same affirmative action obligations as other political subdivisions (effective October 1, 2012).