Proposed Legislation Would Cripple Municipal Budgets

Saturday, April 21, 2007 | 0

By Dennison Allen

House Bill 6956 would be the largest unfunded state mandate on the town of Sprague and could cost town and its taxpayers tens of millions of dollars for decades to come.

If enacted, the bill would force municipalities to pay for benefits to firefighters who are diagnosed with certain types of cancer or who suffer from heart disease or hypertension, without requiring them to show these ailments are work-related.

The bill would also require municipalities to pay the costs of police officers or firefighters who have infectious or contagious diseases -- again, regardless of whether they have contracted the disease while working.

The bill dismisses an employee's obligation to disclose such mitigating factors as lifestyle, habits or family medical history as possible contributing causes to conditions such as heart attacks or prostate cancer. The workers' compensation system is fair and works well.

The state's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis identified the impact of this colossal mandate on local budgets as "significant," one of the biggest understatements of this legislative session. It is a huge giveaway of public tax dollars.

According to the fiscal analysis, the cost to a municipality of a single case of tuberculosis or meningitis would range between $750,000 and $2.5 million.

Meanwhile, being forced to assume an employee's cancer is automatically related to his or her job could cost towns and cities more than $1 million per case.

The existing workers' compensation system is the appropriate mechanism to address these job-related illness claims.

The system should not be jury-rigged to grant a new entitlement to any particular group of employees or employers at the expense of property taxpayers and local programs.

Allen is first selectman of the town of Sprague, Conn. This column first appeared in the Norwich Bulletin.

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