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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | February 25, 2021 10:43 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Joe Pittman |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Inclusion of Department of Corrections, Bureau of Investigations and Intelligence under the definition of Enforcement Officer |
| I plan to introduce legislation to amend Title 71 (State Employees’ Retirement Code) to expand the definition of “enforcement officer” to include commissioned police officers under the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) Bureau of Investigations and Intelligence. The officers under the Bureau of Investigations and Intelligence primarily conduct internal affairs investigations of staff misconduct. However, they also conduct investigations of criminal activity in and related to state correctional facilities such as the smuggling of narcotics. In doing these investigations, they are often in communities serving search warrants and makings arrests. While the Bureau was granted police powers approximately 15 years ago, the state retirement code was not amended to include its police officers under the “enforcement officer” definition. As a result, they are excluded from falling under the 50/55 retirement guidelines afforded other Commonwealth law enforcement officers such as Capitol Police, Parole Agents, Corrections Officers and most recently Game Commissioner Officers. Given their comparable training, level of stress and sometimes physically challenging duties, I believe it is appropriate to include these officers under the “enforcement officer” definition in the SERS Code. Please join me in cosponsoring this bill. If you have any questions, please contact Anne Achenbach, of my staff, at 7-4404 or at aachenbach@pasen.gov. |
Introduced as SB622