Panel moves to draft bill to give emergency dispatchers mental‑health coverage under Wyoming workers' comp

The Labor, Health and Social Services Committee voted to pursue a committee bill to add public safety telecommunicators—often called emergency dispatchers—to Wyoming's statutory definition of "first responder," a change that would make them eligible for workers' compensation mental‑health treatment even in the absence of a compensable physical injury.

Department of Workforce Services Deputy Director Jason Wolf told the committee the current workers' compensation statute covers mental‑health treatment for first responders only when it accompanies a physical injury, a requirement he said traces to changes made in the 2020 session (Senate File 117). Wolf said the agency's memo and data show about 350 emergency dispatchers in Wyoming and 30 mental‑only claims filed between 2023 and 2025, with roughly $63,000 paid over that period.

"The way the workers compensation act is structured currently is that a person would only be an employeeeligible for mental health care if it was in conjunction with a physical injury," Wolf said. He told lawmakers the 2020 law also capped eligibility for mental‑health treatment at 36 months in many cases and that treatment duration varies with diagnosis and provider recommendation.

Lawmakers pressed Wolf on fiscal and operational implications. He said the statewide workers' compensation fund holds about $2.8 billion against roughly $2.2 billion in liabilities—about $600 million in reserve—and that the department believes it has capacity to handle any additional claims, but cautioned actuarial work is needed for a precise fiscal note.

"Using those claims as a gauge, over the course of three years we've spent about $63,000 on those 30 claims," Wolf said, adding the department would work with its actuary to estimate a formal fiscal impact.

Multiple dispatch center supervisors and public‑safety associations gave testimony, describing repeated exposure to traumatic calls, high turnover and out‑of‑pocket counseling costs for some employees. "There is no decompression or downtime in between calls for service and it is cumulative and it does build," said Monty Mlan of the Wyoming chapter of APCO, describing 21 years supervising dispatchers and six employees who left his center for mental‑health reasons.

Chuck Trimble, dispatch program manager for the Highway Patrol, described calls he said he still remembers: "I have listened to a man call in to report his own suicide and then shot himself while he was on the phone with me," he said. Leaders from municipal governments said they already pay full premium rates associated with first‑responder classifications and argued coverage should match the premiums employers pay.

Representative Yin moved to draft a committee bill to amend the first‑responder definition to include public safety telecommunicators; the motion was seconded and the committee agreed to place the item on the October agenda for additional actuarial information and to consider a bill draft for November. The committee requested that LSO compile comparison language from other states and that the department provide preliminary actuarial scenarios ahead of the October meeting.

Next steps: the committee will receive actuarial information and the department's annual report before deciding final bill language. The committee's action was procedural (voice vote); no final statutory change was enacted at the meeting.