Legislative History of the Residency Bill for Police and Firefighters

TO:

FROM: Veronica Rose, Research Associate

RE: Legislative History of the Residency Bill for Police and Firefighters

You asked for the legislative history of the bill prohibiting municipalities from requiring residency as a condition of employment for certain municipal employees.

CGS § 7-460b prohibits municipalities from requiring that employees covered by collective bargaining agreements live in the town as a condition of employment. The legislation began as Raised Bill 5681, which was referred to the Labor and Public Employees Committee on January 17, 1989.

The committee held a public hearing on the bill on January 26. Only three people, representing labor (AFSCME), firefighters, and municipalities (CCM), testified. Labor and the Uniformed Firefighters Association supported the bill. CCM opposed it.

Jim Finely, the CCM representative, testified that CCM neither supported nor opposed residency as a condition of employment. But he said the state should not abrogate the authority of towns to decide whether to impose such a requirement. AFSCME testified that requiring residency as a condition of employment was anachronistic, discriminatory, and possibly unconstitutional. The Uniformed Fire Fighters Association indicated that residency requirements should be a matter for collective bargaining and should not be unilaterally imposed.

The Labor Committee took up the bill on February 3. It added substitute language to the effect that the bill did not affect existing collective bargaining contracts with residency provisions or prohibit future contracts with such provisions.

The committee reported the bill to the House on February 3. The House referred it to the Planning and Development Committee on February 15. That committee failed to act on the bill before its deadline. The bill was petitioned out of the Planning and Development committee on April 6 and the House overturned the unfavorable report (File 351) on April 18.

The House debated the bill on May 9 after adding an amendment that removed the Labor Committee's language; the Senate debated it on June 1. The debate in both chambers included the same arguments raised at the public hearing. But the bill's opponents in the House also indicated that abolition of the residency requirements would have a negative economic effect on municipalities and would remove an incentive for people to stay in cities. Much of the House debate also centered on whether the amended bill would make residency an impermissible subject for collective bargaining. Neither the legislative history nor the bill makes this clear.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 100 to 45, and the Senate passed it by a vote of 30 to six. It was signed into law (PA 89-263) on June 22 and was codified as CGS § 7-460b.

The legislation began as Raised Bill 5681, "An Act Prohibiting Residency Requirements for Municipal Employees." It was referred to the Labor and Public Employees on January 17. The original bill prohibited municipalities from requiring that employees covered by collective bargaining agreements live in the town as a condition of employment. (The bill does not specify firefighters and police officers but these workers are covered by collective bargaining contracts with municipalities.)

The public hearing on the bill was held on January 26. Three people spoke, two in favor of the bill. Paul Wallace, lobbyist for Connecticut Council 4 AFSCME union, was the first to testify. He told the committee that "residency as a requirement for municipal employment was an anachronism...discriminatory, probably illegal when federal funds are involved, possibly unconstitutional, and definitely contrary to the best interest of the few communities where such restrictions still persist" (Lab. Com. Proc., 1989 Sess., p. 62).

Raymond Shea, president of the Uniformed Fire Fighters Association, testified that the residency requirement was depriving some public employees of the constitutional right to live where they chose. He indicated that residency requirements should not be unilaterally imposed by a municipality but should be a subject for collective bargaining.

Jim Finley, legislative services director for the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM), told the committee that CCM neither supported nor opposed residency requirements. But CCM supported the right of towns to impose such requirements--a right that the court had upheld. The state Supreme Court (in Carafano v. Bridgeport, 196 Conn. 623) upheld a binding arbitration award with a residency requirement for police officers. The plaintiffs, 11 Bridgeport police officers, sought to enjoin the enforcement of a collective bargaining agreement provision requiring that each Bridgeport police officer live in the town as a condition of employment. The court concluded that the plaintiffs' claim that the residency provision violated their equal protection rights under the state constitution was unpersuasive.

According to Finley, any effort to change municipal residency requirements should be initiated at the local level "through collective bargaining, ordinance charter revision, or through the electoral process, not through the statute" (id. at p. 126).

The Labor Committee took up the bill on February 3. The committee added substitute language to the effect that the bill did not affect residency provisions in effect on October 1, 1989 or prohibit such requirements in future collective bargaining contracts with municipalities.

The substitute language would appear to indicate that the intent of the committee was to create a distinction between residency requirements that were unilaterally imposed by a municipality, which would be prohibited, and those that were arrived at through collective bargaining, which would be permitted.

The committee favorably reported the substitute bill (File 16) by a 12 to two vote to the House on February 3.

The House referred the bill to the Planning and Development Committee on February 15. That committee failed to act on the bill before its deadline. The bill was petitioned out of the Planning and Development committee on April 6. The House overturned the unfavorable report (File 351) by a vote of 114 to 30 on April 18 and debated the bill on May 9.

Representative Adamo brought out the bill in the House and introduced an amendment (LCO 6647), which was adopted on a voice vote. The amendment deleted the language that had been added by the Labor Committee stating that the bill did not affect existing labor contracts or prohibit residency requirements in future collective bargaining contracts. Adamo stated that the language was unnecessary and that the deletion had no practical effect since the U.S. Constitution (Art. 1, § 10) prohibits states from passing laws that impair existing contracts.

Several lawmakers participated in the debate. Representatives Coleman and Radcliffe were the bill's most vocal opponents.

Coleman opposed the bill on three grounds. First, it would remove an incentive for people to remain in the city. Second, it would have a negative economic impact on cities, because people paid taxes and did most of their spending where they lived. Third, it was a violation of the Home Rule Act (an argument raised by most of the lawmakers who spoke against the bill). Coleman proposed an amendment (LCO 6667) that would have exempted certain people from residency requirements. The amendment was defeated by a vote of 34 to 109.

Representative Radcliffe opposed the bill on the grounds that it meant that residency as a condition of employment could no longer be negotiated in collective bargaining contracts with municipalities. The issue of whether the bill made residency an impermissible subject for collective bargaining with municipalities dominated the House debate. According to Radcliffe:

I don't like residency requirements....However, what this bill would do, it seems to me, would be to say that regardless of what the collective bargaining unit and the municipality decide, regardless of the wishes of the bargaining agreements, residency is not a proper subject of collective bargaining. I believe that subject should be left in the hands of the municipality (House Proc., 1989 Sess., pp. 5349-5350).

It is not clear from the debate whether lawmakers intended to prohibit residency requirements as a subject in future contract negotiations. Initially, Adamo, the bill's sponsor in the House, indicated that the bill would prohibit such requirements (id. at p. 5348). But he later reversed his position and told the House that residency requirements could be negotiated (id. at pp. 5352-5353). He cited in support of the latter position a ruling by the state Board of Labor Relations that "residency requirements for municipal employees was a condition of employment, and therefore, a mandatory subject of collective bargaining" (id. at p. 5352). Wollenberg contended that the bill would supersede the ruling and prohibit such negotiations (id. at p. 5355).

The bill's supporters did not offer very specific arguments in support of their position. But at least one lawmaker implied that residency as a condition of employment was an anachronism. Another indicated that if his town had such a requirement, the town would not be able to find enough people for a fire or police department.

Senator Maloney introduced the bill in the Senate and urged its adoption on the grounds that the concept of requiring residency as a condition of employment was outmoded and unnecessary. According to Maloney:

The residency rule at one time may have been good public policy. In modern society with modern transportation, I don't believe it [still] is. It merely represents an irrational, arbitrary and discriminatory barrier to employment and residency [as a condition of employment] should be abolished (Sen. Proc., 1989 Sess. p. 3360).

Several senators supported this position and offered other arguments in support of the bill. Senator Upson indicated that Waterbury had abolished the residency rule without any apparent negative effects. Senator Scarpetti said this is a free country and people should be able to choose where to live. Senator Robertson cited the example of a worker who was dismissed from her job in the city after she got married and went to live with her husband who was subject to a residency requirement in his own town.

Senator Daniels was the bill's main opponent in the Senate. His views were shared by most of the senators who opposed the bill. Daniels said the residency rule was intended to prevent the middle class from leaving cities and the bill would encourage their departure. He argued that the bill was interfering in municipal affairs and doing what towns should do themselves. He suggested that living in the town where one worked was an expression of commitment to that town. He proposed an amendment (LCO 7610) that would have given people who lived and worked in a town 10 points on civil service examinations. The amendment failed on a voice vote. Another amendment (LCO 7600), which was proposed by Senator Barrows and would have allowed fire and police chiefs to have their own unions, was defeated by a nine to 27 vote.

The bill was signed into law on June 22 (PA 89-263) and was codified as CGS § 7-460b. It states:

Notwithstanding any provision of the general statutes or special act or local law or ordinance or charter, no municipality may require (emphasis ours) as a condition of employment with such municipality that an employee whose position is subject to the terms of a collective bargaining agreement reached pursuant to 7-467 to 7-477 inclusive, reside in such municipality.

The law clearly prohibits a municipality from unilaterally requiring, by ordinance or otherwise, residency as a condition of employment. Less clear is whether residency requirements are precluded from future collective bargaining contract negotiations. If a residency provision was negotiated as part of such a contract, the municipality could perhaps argue that it did not require the provision but negotiated it. On the other hand, the net effect of such a provision is that the municipality, as the employer, would be requiring residency as a condition of employment. There are no court cases on this issue and we do not know how a court would rule.