Is this the cause of firefighters
SANATOGA PA – Lower Pottsgrove Township Manager Rodney Hawthorne knows government, knows politics, knows bureaucracy. Given his years of experience in municipal work, he might even be considered an expert in all three. He isn’t a physician, though, and neither, he thinks, are many members of the Pennsylvania Legislature.
So why, Hawthorne asks, do they want to play doctor?
The manager and – as of its last meeting – the township Board of Commissioners, opposes a bill titled the “Firefighter Cancer Presumption Legislation” (HB1231) that was approved 45-4 on Friday (Oct. 15, 2010) by the state Senate. It reportedly presumes any cancer affecting any firefighter in the state was caused while combating a blaze, and changes the state Workers’ Compensation Act to provide medical insurance coverage for it as an “occupational disease.”
“It’s another unfunded mandate that will cost us (the township) more money,” Hawthorne says.
Although members of the Sanatoga and Ringing Hill fire companies are volunteers, Lower Pottsgrove pays their workmen’s compensation insurance premiums. The cancer presumption bill if finally approved could send the cost of those premiums much higher, Hawthorne estimates, leaving few municipalities prepared to cover the added expense in a tight economy.
In a letter unanimously adopted Oct. 4 (2010) by commissioners for distribution to members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Lower Pottsgrove board proclaimed its “strong opposition” to the law and its anticipated effects.
The state’s firefighter advocacy group, the Pennsylvania Professional Firefighters’ Association (PPFFA), responds that municipalities have it all wrong.
Local officials like those in Lower Pottsgrove have mistakenly been scared “into speaking out negatively about the legislation,” which covers not all but only a select list of cancers, PPFFA President Art Martynuska wrote last week. The coverage isn’t for a lifetime, either, Martynuska adds, but for a maximum of 11-1/2 years.
By attempting to block the bill’s passage, Martynuska warns ominously, municipalities and other opponents are “playing with fire fighters’ lives.”
The state House of Representatives passed the bill last year. Once it and the Senate work out language details on the version approved Friday, it seems destined sometime during November or later to be sent to the governor’s office. The outcome of this year’s gubernatorial elections is likely to play a role in whether the bill is rejected or finally signed into law.
Related:
- Bill would give cancer coverage for firefighters exposed on the job (Philadelphia PA Inquirer)
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Oct. 4):
- Lower Pottsgrove Opposes Firefighter Cancer Mandate
- The Marshal? Sorry, He’s Kinda Busy Right Now …
- Former Reporter Asks Commissioners To Support 422 Tolls
- Welcoming The Newest Of Lower Pottsgrove’s Finest
- Lower Pottsgrove Gives Gift Its Diesel Fuel Business
- Lower Pottsgrove Commissioners May Reward Bidders
Photo from Clipart.com
