The state senate has passed a workers compensation bill that towns and cities say would impose new "mega mandates" on them.
The bill would compel municipalities to pay workers compensation benefits to police officers if they see a person's death and it causes them mental or emotional impairment. It would also extend those benefits to firefighters who get cancer -- and those firefighters wouldn't have to prove that they got cancer on the job.
"We need to stand strongly and firmly with our police officers and our firefighters in this state," said state Sen. Bob Duff, the Democratic majority leader. And he said towns an cities have the money to cover this new expense.
"We feel that there are enough dollars coming from the state for the towns to adequately address these costs," Duff said.
But Joe DeLong sees it differently. He's the executive director of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. At a press conference, he said that if state lawmakers want push this expense on towns and cities, then state lawmakers should figure out how to pay for it.
"You want to stand with first responders. It sounds good. You want to say that your compassion kicks in when it comes to things such as cancer; that pulls at the core of all of us as human beings," DeLong said. "But legislators who want to stand up and say that they support these things...must also be willing to stand up and take accountability for the fact that they support raising property taxes."
Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said local leaders need to be at the negotiating table.
"We'd rather sit down and be able to talk over this issue, and look at some way, some compromise, to be able to make everybody whole and make everybody happy," he said. "That may mean that the State of Connecticut has to fund this if they really want this."
The bill is now in the House.
