SENATE DOCKET, NO. 1506        FILED ON: 1/17/2019

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1554

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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PRESENTED BY:

Eric P. Lesser

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To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act providing fair and equitable line of duty death benefits for public employees.

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PETITION OF:

SENATE DOCKET, NO. 1506        FILED ON: 1/17/2019

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1554

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the One Hundred and Ninety-First General Court
(2019-2020)

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An Act providing fair and equitable line of duty death benefits for public employees.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1. Section 100A of Chapter 32, as amended in section 9 of chapter 5 of the acts of 2017, is hereby further amended by striking subsection (c) in its entirety and inserting in place thereof the following subsection:-

(c) The killed in the line of duty benefit shall be a 1-time payment of $300,000 to the family of a deceased public employee. As used in this section deceased public employee shall mean any public employee working for state or county government, a Massachusetts public higher education institution, a municipality, public school department, or public school district or public authority who, while in the performance of his/her duties and as a result of incident, accident or violence, was killed or sustained injuries which were the direct and proximate cause of his/her death.

SECTION 2. Section 100A of chapter 32 is hereby further amended in subsection (d) by replacing each occurrence of the words “public safety employee” in said subsection with the words “public employee”.

SECTION 3. Section 16 of chapter 15A, as amended by chapter 283 of the acts of 2016, is hereby amended by striking out the ninth paragraph and inserting in place thereof the following paragraph:-

There shall be a public service scholarship program to provide scholarships to the: (i) children and widowed spouses of Massachusetts police officers, firefighters, corrections officers, and public employees working for state or county government, a Massachusetts public higher education institution, a municipality, a public school department, a public school district or a public authority who were killed or died from injuries received while in the performance of their duties, including authorized training duty; (ii) children of prisoners of war or of military or service persons missing in action; and (iii) children of veterans whose service was credited to the commonwealth and who were killed in action or otherwise died as a result of such service. Such scholarships shall be awarded by the council pursuant to its guidelines established to govern this program and shall go to those persons referenced above who are admitted to an institution of higher education in the commonwealth to pursue undergraduate studies. The guidelines shall include, but not be limited to, a waiver of mandatory fees.

SECTION 4. Sections 1 through 3, inclusive, shall take effect as of March 10, 2017 and shall apply to applications received by the state board of retirement under section 100A of chapter 32 of the general laws on or after March 10, 2017.