Will first responder workers’ comp law impact City of Amarillo budget? - KAMR - MyHighPlains.com

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — A Texas law that took effect this past summer has left one part of the city of Amarillo’s budget significantly lower than usual and leaders are trying to figure out how to pay for it moving forward.

In the last legislative sessions, Texas passed Senate Bill 22. The bill essentially creates a presumption that first responders who die from or are disabled by any disease, including COVID-19, which was the basis for the bill, contracted it on the job, and can file for worker’s compensation.

“It met a need that we identified as existing before the session even started, and it was effective in June. And that allowed for even retroactive claims to be filed through the remainder of 2021. So really, I think, a very good bill that had really broad support across the entire state,” said Republican State Rep. Four Price, Texas District 87.

The claims are retroactive to March 13, 2020, something Rep. Price said he felt was important to include.

“Since it wasn’t effective until June, you know, there were lots of first responders who came into contact with folks who were infected or had negative effects of an infection themselves long before June of 2021,” said Price. “So we provided that as an opportunity for those folks to refile those claims.”

During Tuesday’s City of Amarillo work session, Assistant City Manager Laura Storrs spoke to the city council on what this means for the city from a financial standpoint.

“On average, we usually incur about $1.3 million each year on our workers’ compensation claims. So with the addition of this new senate bill and putting COVID-19 claims in it, this last fiscal year, the one that ended September 30, 2021, we incurred a total of $5.4 million in workers’ comp claims. $3.9 million of that was associated with our first responder COVID-19 claims,” said Storrs.

Storrs said the last fiscal year saw an increase of 231% in workers’ comp claims since the bill was enacted. The city’s first responders workers comp. Claims increased 792% in that same period.

Storrs said the city’s workers’ comp fund is not just made up of workers comp.

“It’s our self-insurance fund. It is made up of workers comp. It’s also made up of our property insurance … we have our cyber liability insurance. We have our general liability insurance. It’s all in this one fund,” said Storrs. “This fund, we target our reserves, as we talked about quite a bit in our funds, we target between $5 million and $6 million. So normally what we’re targeting is kind of what claims across the board look like in one year. So … we were planning on having that at that level as we walked into this new fiscal year with the budget. However, with the claims we incurred last year, those reserves are now down to about $2.7 million. So we’re going to have to address that during budget.”

For example, three Amarillo Police officers have died due to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Storrs said each of their deaths was deemed in the line of duty deaths.

“From a workers comp standpoint … the surviving spouses are entitled to lifetime payments through workers comp, and eligible dependent children are also entitled to receive payments until they graduate either high school or college,” said Storrs.

City Manager Jared Miller said the city is bringing this to the council’s attention to recognize they may have a shortfall within the next year or two.

“This is not a criticism of public safety at all. It’s really more of a ‘we need to have the conversation as soon as we’re aware of it, we need to have a conversation with counsel to let you know that there’s a significant financial impact that has never been planned for before,'” said Miller. “I’m not saying that I think, I wish or want this policy to change, I am saying that we have to be aware of it as we go through this next budgetary process so that we can budget accordingly, it will have a significant tax impact or revenue impact, somehow we’re gonna have to figure out a way to pay for these claims. It is a sensitive conversation point. It’s a sensitive topic. Everyone supports our team, and everyone wants to take care of our team. More than anything else, it’s just recognizing that we have a significant shortfall coming within one year, maybe two.”

The law is set to expire on Sept. 1, 2023. Rep. Price said that decision was on purpose.

“The legislature will have a whole nother session when it goes back into session and 2023 in January, to evaluate where we are, whether or not this should be expanded, renewed, or go ahead and let it terminate. You know, with these public health crises, no one really is very good at predicting where we’ll be necessarily at some point in the future. So, I think it’s good to build in some flexibility,” said Rep. Price.

Will first responder workers’ comp law impact City of Amarillo budget?

Will first responder workers’ comp law impact City of Amarillo budget?

CONNECTING...

source: https://www.myhighplains.com/news/your-local-election-hq/will-first-responder-workers-comp-law-impact-city-of-amarillo-budget/

Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.