[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2944 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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114th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 2944

 To require adequate reporting on the Public Safety Officers' Benefit 
                    program, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 18, 2016

Mr. Grassley (for himself and Mrs. Gillibrand) introduced the following 
    bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the 
                               Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To require adequate reporting on the Public Safety Officers' Benefit 
                    program, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Public Safety Officers' Benefits 
Improvement Act of 2016''.

SEC. 2. REPORTS.

    Section 1205 of title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe 
Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3796c) is amended--
            (1) in subsection (a), by inserting ``Rules, regulations, 
        and procedures issued under this part may include regulations 
        based on standards developed by another Federal agency for 
        programs related to public safety officer death or disability 
        claims.'' after ``before the Bureau.'';
            (2) in subsection (b)--
                    (A) by inserting ``(1)'' before ``In making''; and
                    (B) by adding at the end the following:
    ``(2) In making a determination under section 1201, the Bureau 
shall give substantial weight to the evidence and all findings of fact 
presented by a State, local, or Federal administrative or investigative 
agency regarding eligibility for death or disability benefits.''; and
            (3) by adding at the end the following:
    ``(e)(1)(A) Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of 
this subsection, the Bureau shall make available on the public website 
of the Bureau information on all death, disability, and educational 
assistance claims submitted under this part that are pending as of the 
date on which the information is made available.
    ``(B) Not less frequently than once per week, the Bureau shall make 
available on the public website of the Bureau updated information with 
respect to all death, disability, and educational assistance claims 
submitted under this part that are pending as of the date on which the 
information is made available.
    ``(C) The information made available under this paragraph shall 
include--
            ``(i) for each pending claim--
                    ``(I) the date on which the claim was submitted to 
                the Bureau;
                    ``(II) the State of residence of the claimant;
                    ``(III) an anonymized, identifying claim number; 
                and
                    ``(IV) the nature of the claim; and
            ``(ii) the total number of pending claims that were 
        submitted to the Bureau more than 1 year before the date on 
        which the information is made available.
    ``(2)(A) Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of 
this subsection, and every 180 days thereafter, the Bureau shall submit 
to Congress a report on the death, disability, and educational 
assistance claims submitted under this part during the 180-day period 
preceding the report.
    ``(B) Each report submitted under subparagraph (A) shall include 
information on--
            ``(i) the total number of claims, and the nature of each 
        claim, submitted to the Bureau;
            ``(ii) the number of claims for which a final determination 
        has been made;
            ``(iii) the number of claims for which a final 
        determination has not been reached and the basis for the delay;
            ``(iv) the amount of time required to process each claim 
        for which a final determination has been made and, for any 
        claim which could not be processed within 1 year of being 
        submitted to the Bureau, the basis for any delay;
            ``(v) the number of claims submitted that are related to 
        exposure due to the September 11th, 2001, terrorism attacks and 
        the average award amount for any such claims for which a final 
        determination has been made;
            ``(vi) the result of each claim, including the number of 
        claims rejected and the basis for any denial of benefits;
            ``(vii) the number of claims that were appealed;
            ``(viii) the number of claims processed per reviewer of the 
        Bureau; and
            ``(ix) the average amount of time each agency takes to 
        submit all required information and documents to the Bureau.
    ``(3) In this subsection, the term `nature of the claim' means 
whether the claim is a claim for--
            ``(A) benefits under this subpart with respect to the death 
        of a public safety officer;
            ``(B) benefits under this subpart with respect to the 
        disability of a public safety officer; or
            ``(C) education assistance under subpart 2.''.
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