Photo Courtesy of University of Chicago Institute of Politics
Sen. Gillibrand co-authored the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Improvement Act with Sen. Chuck Grassley.
By Forum Staff
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved legislation that would reduce the backlog of families awaiting approval of survivor benefits of public safety officers killed in the line of duty, the bill’s authors, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), recently announced.
Congress established the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits program in 1976 to provide death benefits to survivors of officers who die in the line of duty. Over the years, the law has been amended to provide disability and education benefits, and to expand the pool of officers who are eligible for these benefits. While the Justice Department has a goal of processing survivor claims within one year of the time they are filed, many families must wait long periods of time for their applications to be approved.
To address the backlog, the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Improvement Act expands public oversight of the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits program by permanently increasing the level of transparency regarding wait times for benefits applications. Specifically, the bill:
requires the Justice Department to post on its website, weekly status updates for all pending claims and biannual aggregate statistics regarding these claims;
allows the DOJ to rely on other federal regulatory standards;
requires the DOJ to demonstrate clear and convincing evidence that an officer was negligent or engaged in misconduct at the time of his or her death or injury before denying a claim on those grounds; and
allows for the DOJ to give substantial weight to—and sometimes requires it to adopt—findings of fact of state, local, and other federal agencies.
Gillibrand and Grassley also noted that, under the bill, the DOJ must also utilize all of its investigative authorities before rejecting claims based on a lack of information, and establish remedies for claimants who age out of eligibility for education benefits because of the department’s own delays in processing their claims. The bill’s provisions would apply to all claims that are pending at the time of the measure’s enactment, in addition to all claims filed after that date.
“When a first responder dies as a result of their work, we all have a responsibility to help take care of their surviving family members,” Gillibrand said. “This legislation would help ensure that the families of fallen first responders receive the compensation they deserve and need in a timely and transparent manner. Now that this bill has passed the Senate, I urge my colleagues in the House of Representatives to send it to the president’s desk to be signed into law as quickly as possible.”
According to recent data, at the end of March 2017, there were 756 active claims before the PSOB Office. These claims have been pending for an average of 753 days. Between October 2016 and March 2017, the PSOB Office determined 179 claims, but received 192 claims, resulting in a net increase in the number of pending claims.
“As a society, we’ve promised to support the loved ones of officers who paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect us, so it’s unacceptable that these families are often forced to wait, in some cases, for years, for the Justice Department to process their survivor benefits applications,” Grassley added. “A little transparency and public scrutiny can go a long way, and this bill shines a bright public light on the Justice Department’s survivor benefits backlog to get some answers for these families.”
