October 20, 1969 - 5 Pub. Law 91-93 then payment of annuity may be made by reason of this section in such case, beginning as of the effective date of the termination because of the remarriage. 83 STAT. 140 SEC. 206. (a) The first sentence of subsection (d) of section 8341 of Survivor title 5, United States Code, is amended to read as follows: "If an annuities. employee or Member dies after completing at least 18 months of 80 Stat. 578. civilian service, the widow or dependent widower of the employee or Member is entitled to an annuity equal to 55 percent of an annuity computed under section 8339 (a)-(e) and (h) of this title as may 80 Stat. 574; apply with respect to the employee or Member, except that in the 81 Stat. 642. computation of the annuity under such section, the annuity of the employee or Member shall be at least the smaller of (i) 40 percent of his average pay, or (ii) the sum obtained under such section after increasing his service of the type last performed by the period elapsing between the date of death and the date he would have become 60 years of age." (b) Subsection (e) (1) of such section is amended to read as follows: 81 Stat. 216. "(e) (1) If an employee or Member dies after completing at least 18 months of civilian service, or an employee or Member dies after retiring under this subchapter, and is survived by a spouse, each surviving child is entitled to an annuity equal to the smallest of "(A) 60 percent of the average pay of the employee or Member divided by the number of children; "(B) $900; or "(C) $2,700 divided by the number of children; subject to section 8340 of this title. If the employee or Member is not survived by a spouse, each surviving child is entitled to an annuity equal to the smallest of "(i) 75 percent of the average pay of the employee or Member divided by the number of children; "(ii) $1,080; or 66 "(iii) $3,240 divided by the number of children; subject to section 8340 of this title." 81 Stat. 215; Ante, p. 139. SEC. 207. (a) The amendments made by sections 201, 202, 203, and Applicability. 206 (a) of this Act shall not apply in the cases of persons retired or otherwise separated prior to the date of enactment of this Act, and the rights of such persons and their survivors shall continue in the same manner and to the same extent as if such sections had not been enacted. (b) The amendments made by section 204(a) of this Act to section 8340 of title 5, United States Code, shall apply only to annuity increases which become effective under such section 8340 after the date of enactment of this Act. (c) (1) The amendment made by section 206(b) of this Act shall become effective on the first day of the first month which begins on or after the date of enactment of this Act. (2) The annuity of each surviving child who, immediately prior to the effective date of such amendment is receiving an annuity under section 8341 (e) of title 5, United States Code, or under a comparable provision of any prior law, or who hereafter becomes entitled to receive 83 STAT. 140 70 Stat. 743. 5 USC 83318348. Pub. Law 91-93 - 6 October 20, 1969 annuity under the Act of May 29, 1930, as amended from and after LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: HOUSE REPORT No. 91-158 (Comm. on Post Office & Civil Service). SENATE REPORT No. 91-339 accompanying S. 2754 (Comm. on Post Office & Civil Service). CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Vol. 115 (1969): July 23: Considered and passed House. Oct.2,3: Considered and passed Senate, amended, Senator EAGLETON. Mr. Weinberg, do you have any comment on that last addendum to the record? Mr. WEINBERG. The provision of H.R. 4183 which is under discussion, the Civil Service Commission just the other day took strong exception to this provision, because of the precedent that they felt it would be starting with regard to the Federal sector. I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, that we can see both equity and use of H.R. 4183. There is equity for the bill, there is equity from the standpoint that you could have situations where a man does marry a month after he retires and stays married to a person for 20 years and dies, and there is no provision for financial coverage. But I think what we would have to do would be to take a broader view of this, and to consider the impact upon other employees. I know if we did, this would go into the question of how the Federal sector would feel about this. Right now the Commission has taken a rather negative view of of H.R. 4183 from their standpoint. Our opposition is saying there is some justice, but it should be looked at much more broadly. Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Chairman, there was one other thing. There was a question asked if there were other police departments that had 100 percent retirement benefit in case of death. Senator EAGLETON. Death in the line of duty. Mr. SULLIVAN. In line of duty. One comes to mind and that is Minneapolis, Minn. There are others, I think, but I would not want to make a positive statement on it. I might say, Mr. Chairman, that we are not in total disagreement with a lump-sum payment, but we would question how this would be done. No. 1, we assume, of course, that the normal pensions and benefits would be available to the widow and the children. The lumpsum payment of $50,000 if put in trust and properly handled might be acceptable to us. But we would want to know, say, that you just pay out $50,000 to a widow who may or may not neglect her children, who may or may not do the things with the money that the pension would call for normally. So, there is some provision in our thinking along that line, too, But we were thinking in terms of a trust fund, rather than a lump-sum payment. Trust fund if there are three children, the wife would have a certain amount of the trust fund, the children would have a certain amount of the trust fund, and so forth. Those are things we could go into. And we are not utterly opposed to that, as to the full payment, I might say. Senator EAGLETON. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. Thank you, Sergeant Beatty and Mr. Givens. Our next witness is Capt. Joseph R. Granados, president, District of Columbia Fire Fighters Association, who will be accompanied by Mr. Albert O. Rader, the legislative representative. STATEMENT OF CAPT. JOSEPH R. GRANADOS, PRESIDENT, LOCAL 36, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS; ACCOMPANIED BY ALBERT O. RADER, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE Captain GRANADOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Joseph R. Granados, president of Local 36, International Association of Fire Fighters. I hold the rank of captain in active District of Columbia Fire Department. I have with me today Mr. Albert O. Rader, retired battalion fire chief, District of Columbia Fire Department, who is our legislative representative. If you would prefer, Mr. Chairman, we would request that our prepared statement be incorporated in the record, and I will simply highlight it. Senator EAGLETON. Fine. Your entire prepared statement, Captain, will be made a part of the record, and you highlight for us. (The prepared statement follows:) PREPARED STATEMENT OF CAPT. JOSEPH R. GRANADOS, PRESIDENT, LOCAL 36, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS We are here today to offer justifications for, and to strongly endorse, S-2695. We address ourselves here to six salient features of the bill. These revisions relate to (1) the raising of the maximum optional retirement pension to eighty per cent, (2) the elimination of the age tie-in so that retirement may be elected at any time subsequent to twenty years of service, (3) the changing of the formula by which the pension is computed so that each of the first twenty years is equated two and one-half per cent with three per cent for each of the next ten years, (4) an increase in widows pensions, (5) special compensation for widows of those members who have died in line of duty, and (6) an escalating clause attached to widow's pensions. The increase in maximum pension which we are petitioning is occasioned by the fact that public safety officers are presently disadvantaged vis-a-vis other governmental employees (70% versus 80%) and there seems to us no logical reason why this condition should exist. It is true that our members would arrive at the maximum retirement earlier than the average government employee but we are comparing employees who are daily involved in situations of hazard and risk with employees whose work is of a more sedentary nature. The removal of the mandatory age requirement, thus making retirement possible after twenty years, is a move which has already been found necessary and desirable in a large number of our cities such as Boston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, New Orleans, and New York. It is calculated to improve the problems of both recruitment and retention for in the first instance it is a tangible talking point for enlistment, and in the second instance it is a powerful inducement for a young member, with perhaps eight or ten years already served, to stick it out for the remainder of a twenty year period. We cannot afford to continue wasting the time and money necessary to train and give reasonable experience to our young officers, and then have this training and potential expertise go down the retention drain. In these days, when the harassment of hostile crowds is added to the natural risks of firefighting, the job is becoming increasingly unpalatable. We believe that a provision such as this will aid in convincing our younger members that they should try to weather the storm. The formula change from 2% to 25% for each of the first twenty years is designed to provide a realistic floor of 50% for optional retirement, since any lesser percentage can hardly be contemplated from a practical standpoint. This change in effect, hangs upon the point just made. If we concede the logic of a twenty-year retirement plan regardless of age, we cannot hamstring it with a retirement benefit so ineffectual as to be meaningless. If this line of thinking is correct, then it would be expected that each of the cities mentioned in the preceding paragraph as affording 20 year retirement regardles of age should also provide a 50% annuity. They do. The widows of our members have for a long time been deserving of more generous treatment. It is undeniably true that one can live cheaper than two but the reduction upon widowhood from either the members salary (100%) or a pensioners income (averaging about 67%) to the present pension of 30%, can hardly be classified as adequate. The increase to 40% should markedly alleviate their plight. We vehemently oppose a reduction of income by more than twothirds, if the husband dies while still active, or by more than one-half, if he died while retired; such a reduction would in many cases reduce the recipient to the level of a public welfare case. We don't believe our widows deserve such cavalier treatment. Special compensation for widows of our members who have died in line of duty would occasion but a very limited increase in expenditures. Parenthetically, a teacher in one of our high schools was shot while at school by a man engaged in holding up the school credit union. His widow receives a pension of 75% of his salary. The widow of a firefighter, where such fatalities are far more apt to happen, would receive 30%-plus $50 monthly for each child to a maximum of three. To elaborate further the widow, with two children, of a classified employee, killed in line of duty, can receive as much as $16,192. In contrast, the widow with two children of a firefighter, killed in line of duty, who was making the exact annual salary of his classified counterpart, will receive but $7677. It is true that we are asking for 100% of income, but the increased job hazard would seem to us to warrant the increase over that protection provided to widows of those engaged in more academic pursuits. It would seem to be entirely fitting and proper that we at least insure that the widows of these men who have made the complete sacrifice in their dedication to duty do not suffer any diminution of family income. These cases occur infrequently, only four times in the last ten years, and the increased cost would be inconsequential. As to an "escalator" clause attached to widows' pensions, let us cite a concrete example. Private Preston T. Garrison of Truck Company No. 13, D.C.F.D. lost his life on April 21, 1955, when the roof on which he was standing collapsed, sending him to a flaming death. Private Garrison was 29 years of age. His widow received an annuity of $1800. per year; today, nearly 14 years later, she still receives $1800. per year. On the other hand, if Private Garrison had not been killed, but had sustained a disabling injury and had retired from the department he would have received an annuity computed at 66% of his salary at time of retirement. At that time $3333. per year. Today, Private Garrison's annuity would be $5960. per year, an increase of 80% over his salary at time of retirement. We protect the retiree against the rising cost of living; somehow, for what reason we know not, we refuse to extend the same umbrella over his widow. It is high time we did. And now, having told you of the specific changes we would like to see enacted, we desire to give you our reasons for deserving what you might otherwise deem preferential treatment. Because of our deeply-held belief in the attrition, the toll, exacted or our members in the performance of their duty, we have researched the department files over a twenty year period to determine a composite firefighter; i.e., his age at appointment, at retirement, at death. Since we were necessarily confined to deceased firefighters, our survey encompassed every firefighter who died in the twenty-year period January 1, 1947 through December 31, 1966. They numbered 472. From this study, a picture emerged of a hypothetical firefighter, who was appointed at age 26, retired after 25 years at age 51, and died 14 years later at age 65. To make the project as fair as possible, we then assumed this 65 year old retiree to have died at the midpoint of our 20 year time span, or 1957. This in turn would have made the year of retirement of our "composite" firefighter to have been 1943. Referring to the life expectancy tables of the "Commission Standard Ordinary" (a common set of standards for all insurance companies), as published in 1941, we find that our hypothetical 51 year old retired firefighter should have lived nineteen years after retirement, rather than fourteen. Furthermore, this five-year penalty is not the total price, since we are talking here not of the average man, as is the life insurance table, but rather of the physical cream of the crop. Our members, to be appointed, undergo rigorous physical examinations as to heart, lungs, blood pressure, organs, sight and hearing. Yet, rather than live beyond the norm, we die, on the average, five years before it. To what can we attribute this? Is it not reasonable to assume that a job which calls for going all-out from full-stop in a matter of minutes, of enduring the inhalaation of all manner of noxious fumes and ordors, of suffering the extremes of heat and cold, finally takes its toll? Joshua Lederburg, in a perceptive article in the Washington Post of May 31, 1969 describes the danger of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere to a civilian. How much more dangerous is it then to the firefighter who habitually inhales infinitely larger quantities of it at fires? This then is our case. We believe it to be demonstrably true that each firefighter loses a little of his life at appointment. The mills of the Gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine. There is nothing anyone can do about this aspect of our job function more than is being done; more enlightened training, better education for our members in job-related fields, the increased use of better masks-all these things are helping. But there is one benefit we think we deserve; if our lives are indeed reduced by our job nature, our retirements can be made equivalent by giving us earlier retirement. This is what we ask. |