Biography

As the representative for Hamden’s 91st House District seat, state Rep. Mike D’Agostino has become a leading advocate for establishing an equitable school aid formula and protecting collective bargaining in Connecticut. Since being elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives in November 2012, D’Agostino has also written key legislation that protects the state’s natural resources, helps guarantee seniors financial security and their well-being, and supported bills that invest in working families by strengthening gender pay equity laws and the minimum wage.

 

Prior to his election to the Connecticut General Assembly, D’Agostino was a member of Hamden’s Board of Education for 13 years and served as chairperson from 2005 to 2012. As a former Board of Education member, D’Agostino has spearheaded legislative efforts to change how Connecticut schools are funded. He has advocated for creating an educational aid formula that allocates greater aid to students with higher learning needs, while also considering a municipality’s ability to pay for its schools. Those efforts led to such changes in the 2017 legislative session, as the state adopted a new education aid formula.

 

That same year, D’Agostino led House passage of the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) agreement. Under this historic labor concessions deal, taxpayers will save $1.5 billion over the next biennium and $24 billion over the next 20 years. To help move Connecticut forward, D’Agostino and fellow lawmakers remain committed to making structural changes to the way state government operates, while preserving collective bargaining rights for all workers.

 

In 2013, D’Agostino wrote and passed a law protecting the state’s trees from unnecessary pruning and removal by utility companies. D’Agostino has worked to strengthen this law every year, to give residents more notice for when tree trimming occurs and ensuring utility companies are required to clean up debris after pruning and removal.

 

During the 2015 legislative session, D’Agostino wrote and led passage of legislation that protects senior residents of Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC’s) across the state. Through this legislation, communication between residents and CCRC management has improved, and there has been an increase in transparency to residents regarding the financial stability of the provider operating the facility.

 

D’Agostino serves as chairman of the General Law Committee, where, in 2021, he oversaw the establishment of the regulatory regime to govern the legal, adult-use cannabis market in Connecticut.

 

In addition to his state and local service, D'Agostino is a lawyer in private practice in Hartford, specializing in commercial litigation.  He lives s in Hamden with his wife Kate and their rescue greyhound, Vella.