Dupage Policy Journal

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed legislation providing benefits for Chicago's first responders left disabled by COVID-19, the Chicago Tribune reported.

“For these first responders, serving and protecting wasn’t just their job, it’s been their calling,” Pritzker said. “There are no words to describe the anguish and pain, both physical and emotional, that they’ve been through. But when our first responders aren’t given their full due, the state of Illinois won’t let them down.”

Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza was one of the biggest supporters of the bill after her brother Chicago Police Sgt. Joaquin Mendoza was infected with the coronavirus and became critically ill while being denied full disability benefits by the Policemen’s Annuity & Benefit Fund of Chicago, the story said.

“I am super sad that it happened to my brother. … I absolutely am horrified by it and mortified by it,” Mendoza said at a ceremony to celebrate the signing of the bill. “And in a terrible twist of fate, he and I are both thankful that it did happen to him because I wouldn’t have even known about it otherwise.”

Under the parameters of the proposal, all Chicago police officers, firefighters and paramedics who become ill with long-term disability from the coronavirus will be assumed to have contracted the virus because of their working conditions. This would render them eligible for maximum benefit packages. It applies to those who were sick with the virus from March 9, 2020, through June 30, 2021, allowing those previously denied a disability benefit to apply for a “retroactive duty disability benefit,” the Tribune reported.

At the height of the pandemic, legislation passed stipulating that first responders statewide would be entitled to various protections if they contracted the coronavirus, and automatically assumed that they caught the virus while on the job. But the law failed to include Chicago police officers and firefighters because they’re on a separate disability system.