Witnesses urge Joint Committee on Public Service to broaden accidental-disability and disease presumptions for public-safety workers

At a hearing of the Joint Committee on Public Service, witnesses urged lawmakers to advance a package of bills that would let public-safety workers use incident reports when applying for accidental disability and create medical presumptions that certain diseases are work-related for firefighters and other public employees.

The measures discussed would change how Chapter 32, Section 7 of state law is applied to post-traumatic stress disorder and would establish presumptions that cancers, infectious diseases and Parkinson’s disease can be job-related for firefighters, supporters said. Proponents said the changes are intended to reflect how mental-health conditions and long-term toxin exposures develop and are documented.

Bill Keith, executive director of PARAC, and Patrick Charles, assistant executive director, told the committee that current application rules for accidental disability are rooted in injuries such as knee and back damage and do not match how PTSD or other psychological conditions present.

“Currently, public workers seeking accidental disability must apply within 2 years of the injury or have an injury report filed within 90 days of the injury,” Keith said. He said proof of receiving workers’ compensation satisfies the injury-report requirement, but many public-safety workers in groups 2, 3 and 4 do not receive workers’ comp and instead must rely on an official record of the incident. Recent court decisions, he said, have required a report specifically citing an injury rather than an incident, which he called impractical for PTSD because symptoms can emerge later.

Keith said the bill filed by Chairman Brady (referred to in testimony as “S 17 88”) and by Representative Gordon (referred to as “H 2,583”) would amend Chapter 32, Section 7 to allow an incident report that documents direct involvement in a traumatic event to be used in an accidental-disability application, and would permit consideration of incidents that occurred more than two years earlier. He emphasized that the change would not automatically grant accidental disability: applicants would still need review by three doctors and approval by the retirement board in PIRAC, he said.

Kevin Brusso, secretary-treasurer of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and co-chair of its public-sector task force, expressed support for several companion bills aimed at presumptions for occupational disease and line-of-duty death benefits. Brusso listed bills during his remarks, including measures identified in testimony as “H 2,846 and S 17 97” (infectious-disease presumptions), “H 2,753 and S 18 60” (firefighter retirement benefits), “H 2,836 and S 19 14” (Parkinson’s disease presumptions), and “H 2,901 and S 19 11” (line-of-duty death benefits for non–public-safety workers).

“Firefighting is a deadly job, and it isn't just deadly because of the fire,” Brusso said, describing long-term exposures and toxic chemicals released when equipment and materials burn. He said presumptions are important because cancers and similar illnesses generally result from long-term exposure rather than a single incident.

Witnesses told the committee they worked with retirement-board attorneys, public-safety stakeholders and other parties to draft language intended to build consensus. Both PARAC and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO offered to answer questions and to file written testimony with the committee.

No formal vote or committee action on the bills was recorded during the portion of the hearing covered by testimony in the transcript, and speakers described the measures as changes to application standards and presumptions rather than automatic awards of benefits.