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1) HB 52 [by Anonymous Citizen on February 27, 2007]This Bill is dead in the House A & R Committee. It will never be discussed due to the funding required.
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This bill expands the definition for ‘hazardous duty’ beyond the front line social workers who knock on unfriendly doors. As it is written, it would include those that never leave the office but may have to deal with families within the confines of their office. Most of these office are behind a security door.
See proposed bill definition:
Positions classified in the social services series with duties that regularly and routinely involve child protective services investigations or ongoing direct face-to-face contact with families whose children have been placed in the custody of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services
I’m all for people being compensated for their work. But is this about hazardous duty pay for front line social workers, an across the board pay raise for all social worker classifications, or is it really about the 20 year early retirement enjoyed by law enforcement officers (compared to 27 years.) After all, that is what KRS 61.592 does is increase the contributions to the retirement accounts of ‘hazardous duty’ employees so they can retire early.
If we are going to give social workers full retirement in 20 years, why not give it to pre-trial services officers that have to deal with drunk and unruly detainees right after they are arrested, or revenue workers who have to deal with upset taxpayers, or workers in the child support office who deal with hostile deadbeat dads. The list goes on..............
Increasing the base pay of social workers is long overdue. But let us know all of the ramifications of this bill before jumping on the bandwagon.
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I urge your support of House Bill 52. From 1992-2000 I worked as a front-line Social Worker and supervisor in Paducah with the Department for Social Services (now Community Based Services). I made numerous home visits in areas and in homes where the potential for violence was ever present. I have had law enforcement officers remark that they would have never gone alone into such areas or homes to deal with families and their children, especially unarmed. I know firsthand of colleagues in the Paducah office who were physically attacked and verbally threatened. All of us in this field were very alarmed, but not surprised, about the recent murder of a colleague who was simply providing supervision for a mother with her children. Please give these dedicated and brave workers the benefit of hazardous duty pay for their hard work in dangerous circumstances.
Ruth Elliott
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