Kevin Spradlin
CUMBERLAND — Allegany County sheriff’s deputies could become covered again on two health issues under a single bill the local legislative delegation agreed on Friday to introduce in the Maryland General Assembly.
The first issue is the presumption of the cause of hypertension and heart disease. Currently, it is presumed that either diagnosis is linked to work-related issues for officers of a jurisdiction’s primary law enforcement agency. A Prince George’s County attorney who specializes in workers’ compensation claims for police officers said the deputies also have lost enhanced disabilities benefits.
Delegate Kevin Kelly said it’s “just another illustration of these short-sighted actions” by the county commissioners, who caused both issues to occur when the Bureau of Police was expanded in July 2008. The move transferred the designation of primary law enforcement agency to the newly expanded bureau.
“A cop is a cop,” Kelly said, and a sworn officer of the law should be entitled to the same benefits regardless of which agency’s uniform he wears.
Brandon Butler, District 1 legislative delegation chief of staff, said three Maryland counties — Montgomery, Prince George’s and Howard — have opted to include officers under the presumption clause for multiple county police agencies.
In 2007, Butler said, House Bill 783 extended enhanced workers’ compensation benefits to correctional officers in Montgomery County.
Delegate Wendell Beitzel didn’t want to delve into new territory but said he supports the deputies. “The point is the deputies were covered” in the past, Beitzel said.
The issue dates back to a Maryland Court of Appeals case in 1982, when a Montgomery County sheriff was placed on administrative sick leave and, unable to perform his duties, subsequently retired and made a claim with the state Workmen’s Compensation Commission.
That claim was denied, with the state’s highest court affirming lower courts’ rulings that being a member of a secondary police agency, the sheriff was “not to be accorded a presumption of compensable occupational disease.”
• Also on Friday, the delegation voted to send a letter to the Allegany County Board of Education about a request regarding a proposed Allegany County Neighborhood Public Schools Act of 2010.
If approved by the legislature, the law would mandate that public school buildings for grades K-12 remain in eight specific communities, including areas west and east of Wills Creek in Cumberland where Allegany and Fort Hill high schools now stand. Other specified locations include Flintstone, Frostburg, Lonaconing, Oldtown, Mount Savage and Westernport.
Sen. George Edwards conveyed the message from the delegation that nothing would happen on the request, made by Westernport resident Tom Marsh, in 2010. But the conversation left open the possibility in the future.
“We do support community schools,” Edwards said.
If Westernport Elementary School is flooded again, Edwards asked, would school district officials make repairs or move students to another location?
“We’re not putting a bill in ... that’s part of his request,” Edwards said.
“Not at this point in time,” said Delegate LeRoy Myers.
The delegation agreed to draft a letter to the board of education highlighting Marsh’s concerns, in particular that a study that viewed community schools in a public light was “ignored,” Myers said.
“Let’s send this back to the school board for their review and consideration,” Myers said.
• The delegation also agreed to introduce a bill to define how the distance from a natural gas wellhead to an adjacent property is measured. The bill will request reducing to 500 feet from 1,000 feet the distance from the wellhead to the neighboring property not included in any leasing program between property owners and natural gas companies.
Ohio’s restriction is 500 feet, 400 feet in West Virginia and 330 feet in Pennsylvania and New York. Edwards said one of the four wells applied for in Western Maryland by Samson Resources Co. would have worked with a distance of 500 feet but had to be moved because of the 1,000-foot restriction.
Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.
