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SB349 amended to include EMS By
JOHN HULTGREN FRANKFORT — Kentucky Senate Bill 349, which originally would have removed EMS from state hazardous duty retirement, has been amended in the House to include emergency medical personnel and retain the current retirement benefit calculation. SB 349, as passed by the Senate this week, would have limited state hazardous duty retirement to police, firefighters, and corrections officers, excluding emergency medical technicians from that benefit immediately, and would reduce retirement and insurance benefits in the future. The bill passed the Senate 22-12 on Mar. 16 and was sent to the House. Once in the House, the bill was sent to the State Government Committee where Rep. Jim Bruce yesterday introduced an amendment that hazardous positions created after August 1, 2000, include jailers and deputy jailers if requested by their fiscal court and emergency medical personnel. House Committee Amendment 1 says:
A House Floor Amendment introduced yesterday by Rep. Larry Belcher allows current KERS and CERS employees who are in a nonhazardous position who retire between August 1, 2000, and January 31, 2005, to retire with a retirement allowance based on the high three years. The original bill would have raised benefit calculation to either four or five years, which could have reduced the retirement benefit for individual retirees. The introduction of SB 349 in the Senate on Feb. 29 caused immediate concern from the EMS industry when they learned that the Senate wanted to take hazardous duty retirement away from emergency medical personnel. Such a step would have seriously hurt recruitment and retention of EMS workers. The situation was further complicated because major EMS legislation was in the House at the time, and this legislation would soon be going to the Senate for a vote. Both the Kentucky Ambulance Providers Association and the Central Kentucky EMS Alliance issued appeals to Kentucky EMS workers asking them to remain quiet and let their associations handle the Senate bill. Both associations did not want reactions from EMS workers to jeopardize House EMS bills that would ultimately have to be passed by the Senate. Negotiations reached a critical level earlier this week when the Senate, rather than passing House Bill 405, sent it back to their Appropriations and Revenue Committee. On Tuesday KAPA again issued an appeal to EMS workers to hold off voicing their opposition to SB 349 for 48 hours. By the end of the week, HB 405 had passed the Senate and the House returned EMS and the current retirement calculation to hazardous duty retirement.
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