Today Assemblywoman Marianne Buttenschon (D,I-Utica/Rome) issued the following statement in response to ensuring public employees who died of COVID-19 receive proper death benefits (A.3988).

“Throughout the pandemic, the comfort and safety of our communities has rested on the shoulders of our frontline employees – including government workers, such as health care professionals and the staff of long-term care facilities – who risked their own safety to provide essential goods and services. Many of these brave heroes contracted COVID-19, and too many of them tragically lost their lives as a result, leaving their families both heartbroken and without a source of income,” Buttenschon stated. “In order to support grieving families, we passed a law in 2020 to ensure that the beneficiaries of public workers who died of COVID-19 after reporting to work on or after March 1, 2020 would receive a death benefit equal to 50% of the employee’s monthly salary (Ch. 89 of 2020). Today, I helped pass a bill to extend the eligibility period for this death benefit to December 31, 2022 (A.3988).

This legislation would guarantee that any public employee who contracted COVID-19 during the pandemic will be eligible for their accidental death benefits to be paid out yearly to their beneficiaries. To date, public employees who die of COVID-19 are eligible for ordinary death benefits they would receive if their deaths were not the result of an accident on the job. This legislation ensures that public servants who die of coronavirus throughout the height of this pandemic would receive the more substantial death benefits resulting from an in-service accident.

“This amendment will help ensure that these families don’t have to face the additional burden of lost income. I’ll continue working to support all essential employees and their families during these difficult times” Buttenschon noted.

“The Central New York Labor Council fully supports the A.3988 bill (COVID-19 public employee death benefit) on behalf of public sector workers. Front line workers should be afforded protections that would ultimately affect their families as a direct result of contracting the coronavirus at the workplace,” Samantha DeRiso President of Central New York Labor Council stated.