With legislative committee deadlines having already passed or quickly arriving, the Connecticut Bankers Association is busily keeping abreast of all the issues that might affect the financial industry both positively and negatively.

Tom Mongellow, vice president and treasurer of the CBA, has been busy at the State Capitol recently as the General Assembly’s Banking Committee wraps up its hearings.

Thursday, March 20, was the deadline for action from the committee, and a large number of bills have been submitted.

“Obviously, from our standpoint, budget concerns are our primary focus,” said Mongellow, who writes a legislative bulletin distributed to CBA members. “We just got over a corporate tax increase of 20 percent, bringing it up to where it was a few years ago at 9 percent.”

He added, “We’re going to have to do our best to get our view across as to what we view as important, detrimental and good for industry.”

Mongellow noted that one of the more interesting trends at the legislative level over the last few years has been the increasing number of committees bringing forth bills that relate to financial institutions.

In the past, most business associated with banking was coming out of the Banking, Judiciary and Insurance committees.

“Now we’ve got issues coming out of virtually every committee, with housing issues, general laws, [the] Judiciary [Committee] has never-ending issues from trusts to liens to privacy and obviously the Finance Committee is a big one this year,” said Mongellow. “So instead of looking at three or four committees we’re looking at pretty much all of them, and that’s really a big difference for us.”

Some of the bills in which Mongellow is taking particular interest include Senate Bill 688, a bill concerning identity theft that was sponsored in January. With the number of cases of identity theft more than doubling in Connecticut in the past year, Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, and Chief Deputy President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, D-Killingly, have unveiled legislation that stiffens penalties against those who commit identity theft, provides aid to victims and provides protection of personal information.

“With cases of identity theft starkly on the rise and victims losing tens of thousands of dollars before something is done about it, it has become clear that the time is now to enact a strong, focused plan that protects citizens from such fraud and increases criminal penalties against those who commit such acts,” Looney said during a recent press conference. “This legislation is comprehensive and addresses what we see as the three most crucial areas – providing aid to victims, strengthening criminal statues and preventing future cases.”

Mongellow said that the CBA will work to ensure that the bill interfaces well with all federal regulations that are already in place, including the USA Patriot Act. “One of our primary missions with regard to any state legislation passed is making sure you have smooth integration with the laws currently in place,” he said.

In his most recent report, Mongellow touched on several bills that died in committee, including a bill that that “included unworkable additions” to the Abusive Lending Law and two others that would have mandated that companies offering credit cards allow their customers to pick their payment dates and billing cycles.

‘Great Relationship’

One bill on its way to the Senate is S. 985, which concerns bank and credit union transactions. The bill would authorize fee changes for Department of Banking inspections of out-of-state branches of a Connecticut bank or credit union and in-state branches of out-of-state institutions. The bill reduces the fee of a main office from $2,000 to $500 and eliminates the branch relocation fee.

“The committee is dealing with a host of smaller issues that may not seem very significant but still will have impacts in the industry,” said Mongellow. “These smaller bills often directly impact specific departments within banks, and we work diligently to make sure they don’t have negative impacts, and if the bill has a positive spin we work to push it through.”

In his report, Mongellow cited one bill that was “so poorly written that no one could make sense of it.” After speaking with the bill’s sponsor, it turned out that the intention of the bill was to create an exemption from the licensing of mortgage originators from a particular insurance company. The bill is being redrafted, and the CBA wants to ensure that it won’t negatively impact its originators.

Another proposed bill, H. 6497, would create a state-funded low-interest rate mortgage program for firefighters. With the state currently facing a $1 billion budget deficit, however, the bill never got off the ground.

S. 889, a bill concerning consumer-revolving loans, was “one of the few Banking Committee bills we were actually able to support,” wrote Mongellow. The bill would remove the current prohibition on accessing a home equity line of credit with a debit card or credit card. Although the bill did receive a few no-votes, it passed the committee and is headed to the Senate.

“We will continue to communicate our ‘convenience to the consumer’ argument,” wrote Mongellow.

The joint favorable, or JF, deadlines for committees are wrapping up by mid-April, and the General Assembly session is over on June 4. Most likely, budget talks regarding the next biennial budget will resume after committees are finished.

The CBA tries to remain active at the capital, reviewing every piece of legislation that comes through. Currently, there are roughly 1,200 Senate bills and 1,700 House bills this session. While most of them have nothing to do with the financial industry, they are all reviewed anyway.

“The majority of the bills don’t impact our industry, but we can’t take the chance,” said Mongellow.

There is new leadership in the Banking Committee. Sen. Bill Finch, D- Bridgeport, is the new Senate chairman of the committee. Rep. Kathy Tymniak, R-Fairfield, is a new ranking member. The House chairman, Rep. Paul Doyle, R-Wethersfield, has been in place for two terms, and Sen. Win Smith Jr., R-Milford, has been a ranking member for several terms.

Of the 19 committee members, 11 are new to the group.

“That’s unusual for us,” said Mongellow. “Usually you have turnover of maybe four or five legislators, not 11. We’ve definitely had to spend a little more time informing newer committee members as to what the current state of financial services really is.”

Mongellow added that often issues come up in committee that have been raised or discussed previously, and newer members have to be brought up to speed.

“We have a great relationship with all the leadership and members, and we’ve been doing this for many, many years,” said Mongellow. “We simply have to re-inform some of the newer committee members as to what some particular issues are.”