Changes in the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Law Improve Coverage for Emergency Responders

On December 15, 2003, President Bush signed the Hometown Heroes Survivors Benefits Act into law. This was the most recent of several laws that have amended the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits (PSOB) law since 1990. The PSOB Program is important to EMS personnel because it provides a measure of financial protection to the survivors of certain responders killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. This article is intended to clarify how the federal PSOB Program operates, with the various changes Congress has made over the past three years.

What Is the PSOB?

The Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program is funded by and operated out of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs. The PSOB Program provides one-time, nontaxable financial assistance payments and ongoing educational assistance to the spouses and children of public safety officers (PSOs) who are killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty.

Congress enacted the original Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Act (P.L. 94-430) in 1976 out of concern that the hazardous nature of public safety work might dissuade people from becoming firefighters or law enforcement officers. While the law applied rather narrowly to firefighters and law enforcement officers in 1976, since that time, it has been continually amended to broaden the definition of PSOs and provide additional benefits. More importantly, over time, the focus of the benefits program has shifted to include benefits from certain medical, as well as traumatic, causes of death.

The increase in eligible classes of workers and death/disability-producing causes is a reflection of a growing understanding of the hazards that confront the many types of people who respond to emergencies in the United States.

A Changing Definition of Public Safety Officer

The definition of PSO has changed over the years. Originally, the PSOB Act specified that eligible workers included only firefighters and law enforcement officers—“with or without compensation”—who worked for public agencies.

In 1985, Congress amended the PSOB law to include EMS personnel as covered workers (effective as of 1986). On October 30, 2000, the definition of PSO was extended to include FEMA employees working on a declared disaster or in certain hazardous situations, and state, local and tribal emergency management employees working under similar circumstances in cooperation with FEMA.

When the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, Mychal Judge, a much-revered chaplain with the New York City Fire Department, was killed while administering last rites to one of the many victims of the attack. His death led Congress to amend the PSOB Act to include fire or police chaplains in the definition of PSO, retroactive to September 11, 2001.

The requirement that PSOs work for public agencies still holds. An agency is a public agency if it is a direct arm or instrumentality (e.g., a legally constituted volunteer fire department that acts as the local fire department in a given jurisdiction) of government—not a contractor—in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and any of the territories, commonwealths or possessions of the United States. This means that EMS personnel employed by private ambulance services or private hospitals (including aeromedical personnel) are not eligible to receive program benefits, even though they may work for the official 9-1-1 responder in a given area. PSOB benefits were awarded to private ambulance service personnel killed at the World Trade Center because they responded on a mutual-aid basis at the request of the New York City Fire Department. The precedent value of these awards is unclear (given the highly charged environment surrounding the events of September 11).

Program Eligibility

To receive benefits under the PSOB Program, a PSO must have either been killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. Line of duty is defined as “any action [which a PSO] is obligated or authorized…to perform (including social, ceremonial or athletic functions)…[and for which he is] assigned or…compensated.”