Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor and Public Employment, to which was referred H.B. No. 2228 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to enable a firefighter who retires because of a service-connected disability to return to government service in another capacity and receive a retirement benefit based on the 2.5 percent benefit formula used by firefighters for the period served as a firefighter.

The Honolulu Police Department and an individual firefighter testified in support of this measure. The Hawaii State Firefighters Association, the Honolulu Fire Department, and the State Fire Council supported the intent of this measure. The Employees' Retirement System provided comments on this bill.

Firefighters are in a dangerous profession, which brings them into contact with chemicals, smoke, and a number of pathogens on medical responses. Personal protective devices can only offer protection from these dangers to a limited extent. Exposure to these dangers may produce disabilities in firefighters that do not allow them to continue their work as a firefighter, but does not preclude them from performing any other government service to continue to serve their community.

Although your Committee agrees that firefighters who can no longer perform their duties as a firefighter due to a service-connected disability and who return to government service in any other position besides that of a firefighter should be entitled to service credits they have earned as firefighters, concerns were raised regarding the years of service a firefighter must have performed before becoming eligible for this benefit and what exactly constituted a service-connected disability.

Accordingly, this measure has been amended by providing that if the member has at least 10 years of credited service as a firefighter, is deemed permanently medically disqualified by the employer's physician, and subsequently returns to service in any position other than a firefighter, the member's retirement allowance shall be derived by adding the allowances computed based on section 88-81, HRS.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor and Public Employment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2228, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2228, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.