S.B. 166 Line-of-Duty Death Benefit Amendments: transcript

for having me. Senator, Representative, Can you hear this?

Sharing the love there. I am dual tasking. We're right up to a vote right here on a bill that I'm a swing vote for. So I'm gonna do in my ears and there's summing, uh, but I can still explain the bill. This bill you heard last year, it's the exact same bill. This is the line of duty death benefit bill that, um, makes sure that, uh, when the, the tragic ha tragedy happens, which we never want to happen. And it's rare, but it needs to be more or less often. Our room, uh, fallen soldier, fallen officer, I don't know if you guys had it in the house, but the, I couldn't believe how many people We lost another one Friday afternoon. Oh my gosh. Just so you know. Yeah. So, and it's personal to me. I have, I have a son in law enforcement and I, um, I so honor anyone who put the uniform on. So this bill though, what we did not catch last year was the enacting date missed. I, it, it should have been started a year earlier to capture the Sergeant Bill Hoosier and I carry his badge, uh, his little patch that he wore on his shoulder, remembering him in this bill. And I don't know if you know what EOW means, if the law enforcement would know, but Overwatch, I'm gonna vote here. No. Okay. Yeah. I gotta know what it's, are your full attention. I'm sorry. Um, so this bill, um, it, we have when an, uh, officer passes away his children, um, until they're 18, received the benefits and his spouse medical benefits. And last year I told you that some accountants were trying to pick those benefits apart, saying, well, dental and, uh, vision aren't part of that, where they were part of the package. And, um, so we fixed it. This just loops it back to a prior starting date. That's what the bill does. Representative, I'd be open to questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I love this bill. I think it's great, but I wanna know what you had to vote no on. Uh, this was a 17 panel, um, homelessness for the Olympics bill that just it with a nobody else that nobody in the room that, um, is there a part of the 17 person panel?

I, I, yeah. Not Okay. Sure about that. Maintenance to the, okay. I let it go for a minute. Yeah. Goodness gracious. Okay.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would move that we favorably recommend SB 1 66

I'll waive. Okay.

Yeah. So, uh, I know we've done this to two Senate bills already. I know today. I know and it's against my better judgment, but, uh, this probably appropriate for the consent calendar. Yep. I make that motion. Any,

I I can keep, keep that in mind as I go forward for sure.

No, just to, to say thank you. I I think you're, you're right when this bill's been heard before and, and so it just putting re we don't need the date back. And, and in my sum though, I do just want to, for anybody listening who puts on a uniform and their families each day, um, I know we, we all in both of our chambers told them we would not forget and Utah would not forget. And this is how we do a, a part of how we do that. Thank you Mr. Chair.

Again. Thank you. Committee.

Thank you Mr. Chair. I'm gonna have Commissioner Mason join me for a minute. This, this should be pretty quick. Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to, uh, present the bill. Last year, uh, we presented this bill, it, it made it through the entire process and passed. And unfortunately, this bill came to me from, uh, when the unthinkable happens and we lose an officer in the line of duty. Uh, but we have set up trust funds, other things in place to, to help support the families when we lose officers. I have a, it's very personal to me. I have a son who's an officer, uh, when they're lost in a line of duty. We have support mechanisms in place. Unfortunately, um, staff and myself missed the enacting date and the family that we were trying to Sergeant Hoosier, who was tragically killed on May 5th two years ago, it didn't wrap his family in the year before. So this bill is the same. It simply comes back to change the enacting date and, and put that family under these healthcare services. Um, and I'd let Commissioner Mason comment on it.

Yes, bill Mason, commissioner for the Utah Department of Public Safety. I just wanted to thank the good senator for bringing this forward. These are important people that we have lost in the line of duty. It's, it's important that we, we take care of their families and we appreciate all the work that's been done to put this bill into place in the first place. And then this adjustment really, uh, makes a, a minor modification that'll have a big impact on one or two families. Um, but very important and fiscally as responsible. We've looked at how this will affect the, the budget and the money that's already in that account. And the account is fine. This will not hamper our ability to move forward with any other, um, obligations with it. And we will, we will be easy to manage with this, this new timeframe put in place. So we fully support it and really appreciate the Senator Cullimore moving this forward. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. That concludes our presentation, Mr. Chair. Okay. I have a note that there's a substitute, but we can't find it online. So do you know what the substitute would do, or, I'm trying to get comfortable passing this out with the, with the caveat that, you know, will take care of that if you know what the Substitute is. I'm really not familiar with the sub Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the motion. Um, yep. This is just cleaning up the lang the date, so I appreciate that motion. No, and I, I see what you're trying to do. We thought we had it done.

show something here. Uh, this, We All make mistakes and this one was mine. We ran this bill last year and was very successful. This, this is an officer's patch and what you never wanna see on a, on the bottom of an officer's patch is EOW and that means end of watch. And this was Sergeant Bill Hoosier. I ran this bill last year because, uh, to make sure that health medical benefits stayed with the children and, and surviving spouse of a fallen and appropriately today of a fallen officer. What we didn't, and I missed and staff missed, is that we ran this for him, his family, but the date missed him his date by one month. And we need to go back and fix the, the reenacting date to capture their family. Um, and what it, and simply the bill makes sure that surviving spouse and children until they're 18 are covered by the state trust system, which is very healthy and doing fine, and the state is able to carry that burden rather than the individual departments who are already suffering loss of their officer. They don't have to now pay insurance coverage for an officer they don't have. That's what the bill does. I'd be open to questions.

There is, um, yes. I get, I need, I do need to sub. Who's that in my name? Yes. I, I'm sorry. I need to, um, move to adopt first substitute Mr. President Pro tem.

Yes, it was the technical, it was the technical part on getting the date right and, and, um, we made sure that we added the, uh, firefighter, uh, surviving spouse as well. That's what the sub did.

It is Senator Weiler. Thank

You. Um, Mr. President Pro tem. I I rise in support of the bill. I I wanna point out we've, um, since I've been up here on the hill, which has been a while, we've had, you know, it's always tragic when we lose, uh, an officer in the line of duty and we, we, you know, we honored some families this morning. Um, but I just wanna remind the public and my colleagues, some of our police officers work for a city. Some of 'em work for a county, some of them work for the state, some of 'em work for special service districts. And often, uh, we, we've had some criticism from widows of fallen officers in the past and often they were criticizing the governor or the legislature because the city or county that, um, employed them, you know, wasn't, you know, they didn't feel like the benefits were rich enough. And I just wanna remind everyone we provide, um, benefits for our fallen officers with the UHP, but um, for the rest of them it's really up to their employer, which is often the city or county. Thank you Mr. President.

I'll uh, move that, uh, this Senate Bill 1 66, be read a third time

Senator Baldy Aye. Bwin Aye. Brammer Aye. Bus kalimore Escamilla. Aye. Fillmore Grover Harper Aye. Hankins Aye. Ipson a Johnson Aye. Quan McKay Mikel Milner Mussman Owens pitcher Plum Bie Sandal Stevenson Stratton Bickers Aye. Weiler Aye.

You Mr. President Pro tem. Uh,

A Thank you Mr. President pro Tem. This bill addresses the, uh, when the tragedy happens that we lose a fallen officer that they, their family, uh, the children and spouse children until they're 18 years old, receive the benefits, um, the proper benefit program through the state trust system. Um, and then we did pass a second substitute, um, on the second reading to get to the third. Um, and I'll have to move to suspend the three reading on that because it was an identical system glitch. Um, but, but that's what the bill does. I'll make the motion to suspend, uh, if there's no questions on that. Thank you Mr. President ProAm.

So yeah, we did have a system glitch. It clicked it out as a first sub, but there was no first sub. There was just the original bill. We passed that unanimously. Therefore, uh, I'll take a motion from you that, uh, we passed this bill on. We Suspend the third. We need to suspend the rules on this bill. Yeah, I would move that we Okay.

Thank you Mr. President.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Good morning. This, uh, bill line of duty Death Amendments, uh, is designed to allow public safety and firefighting surviving spouse, uh, trust fund board to, to use money to pay for cost related to coverage of surviving spouses and dependent children during the line of death, uh, or following, uh, death in the line of duty and reimburses an employer for any amount paid, uh, for premium costs or, uh, contributions into health savings accounts. And the, uh, period of effectiveness is beginning one May, 2024, uh, and before uh, seven May, 2025. This bill was primarily written and, and put into place to capture the family of Sergeant Bill Huser was killed in line of duty in Quent on May 5th, 2024. And with that, I'm open to questions.