Law highlights need for fire departments to review policy for paying health benefits
“Public Safety Officers Benefits,” attached as a last-minute amendment to the fiscal year 1996 omnibus appropriations legislation (H.R. 3610) and which became law October 1, 1996, could have a significant impact on the budgets of fire and rescue departments throughout the country, warns James R. Cross, J.D., an attorney specializing in health, safety, and employment law.
In essence, according to Cross, this law says that “public safety officers (including firefighters and EMS personnel) must be given health insurance benefits as long as they live if they retire or end their service due to an injury incurred when responding to an emergency.” If the employer does not provide these benefits, state and local governments will lose 10 percent of the grant money they receive from the federal government under Community Oriented Policing and Local Law Enforcement grants.
Fire chiefs, Cross explains, will have to determine how to respond to this new law, which, as written, offers as an available option that a department not provide the benefits if the amount of money required to provide them is more than the grant money that might be lost by not providing them. He recommends that departments, therefore, review their existing policy regarding payment of health benefits. Many questions must be clarified with regard to this legislation, he says, and recommends that departments contact the law enforcement employers in their community to determine how they are interpreting the law–whether they are planning to provide these benefits and, if so, how they are planning to provide them.
Because “public safety” under this law includes law enforcement and fire/rescue, Cross notes that it would be logical for departments to coordinate their compliance activities. He adds that because a decision by fire/rescue not to provide extended benefits would adversely affect grant money for law enforcement, it would be prudent to coordinate any decision with law enforcement and policy makers first.
Source: “Congress urges permanent health care benefits for fire fighters,” James R. Cross, J.D., On Scene, International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), Jan. 1997, Vol. 11:1.