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Fair Cuomo signs 9/11 first responders bill
State will pay for unlimited medical leave
Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill championed by State Sen. Todd Kaminsky earlier this month that would provide sick time to the people who worked on the rescue, recovery and cleanup after the World Trade Center attacks 16 years ago.
The bill — which applies to active police officers, firefighters and other first responders employed by state and local governments — helps ensure that they don’t “exhaust” their accrued personal time and suffer financial penalties as they address medical problems resulting from their efforts after the terrorist attacks.
Officer Chris O’Connor of the Rockville Centre Police Department said that the bill signing “couldn’t have come at a better time because I don’t think I have more than a week of sick time left.”
O’Connor’s 9/11-related health problems began in 2006 with a scarred gallbladder, and he has more recently developed fibrous polyps and lesions in his sinuses. “I’m going from surgery to surgery trying to alleviate it,” he said.
The New York City police and fire departments provide unlimited sick leave for first responders, Kaminsky said, but those who served in the city on Sept. 11, and later moved to smaller municipalities, like O’Connor, couldn’t claim “line-of-duty benefits” from their new departments.
In many cases, their new departments didn’t have the funding to support the paid time off that the officers and firefighters needed to tend to their health. The bill — which w passed the State Senate unanimously on June 21 — would require the state to “pick up the tab” for the rescuers’ sick days so they would no longer be forced to use accrued personal time.
“We owe a debt of gratitude to the first responders who put their lives and health on the line during and after the Sept. 11 attacks,” Kaminsky said in a statement. “Far too many of the courageous first responders from those terrible attacks continue to battle cancer and other illnesses caused by the debris at Ground Zero. These heroes are faced with financial ruin, and even risk losing their jobs as they seek treatment, and that is no way for our state to treat them.”
Gov. Cuomo signed the bill into law on Sept. 11 — the 16th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. O’Connor said that when he learned of the signing “it was the first time since 9/11 that I didn’t have a complete feeling of depression. It gave me something I can actually feel hopeful about.”
Scott Bowe, a Suffolk County police officer and Rockville Centre resident, suffers from 9/11 related health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder. He had been with the NYPD since 1998, and transferred to Suffolk in the year following the attack.
Bowe said that under the former system, “it was almost like you were penalized for responding to the World Trade Center site,” and that it felt like an “insult” when he learned his department couldn’t cover his sick leave.
“’Never Forget’ has to be more than just a slogan,” Bowe said. “If you want people to respond the way they did on that day, you have to take care of them afterward.” But he added that he was glad that the state was finally taking care of the thousands of first responders in his position.
