The City Council on Tuesday took the first steps toward raising the city's line-of-duty death benefit to $350,000 from the current $100,000.
The review of the city's benefit for public safety and other employees lost in the line of duty follows the fatal shooting on Dec. 14 of Memphis police officer Martoiya Lang. She was killed while the Organized Crime Unit she was part of served a drug-related search warrant.
City Human Resources Director Quintin Robinson said the question of making the change retroactive to include Lang's survivors would be considered. The change, which drew no negative comments from council members in committee, is expected to work its way through the legislative process in coming weeks.
It will raise the city's benefit to the maximum level offered by Shelby County government, where the benefit is based on five times an employee's salary.
Mike Williams, president of the Memphis Police Association, suggested that the increase be made retroactive to the shooting death of another officer, Timothy Warren, at a Downtown hotel in July 2011.
"At some point they're going to have to get back to trying to restore some of the luster to this job," Williams said.
The discussion of the amount of the city's line-of-duty death benefit, which Robinson said has been at its current level since the 1990s, also followed a review of who gets the benefit.
Instead of allowing a "close relative" to receive the money, new language will specify that it goes to a spouse or minor children, he said.
The death benefit applies not only to the city's police officers and firefighters, but to general employees, he said.
Insurance provides the funds for the benefit, he said.
Copyright 2013 - The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
