HB1746 revises Virginia law governing the definition of “public safety officer” in two related contexts: the Commonwealth Public Safety Medal of Valor and workers’ compensation coverage for certain public safety employees. The bill expands the statutory definition in § 9.1-801 to expressly include animal control officers employed under § 3.2-6555, while also continuing to list a broad range of law-enforcement, corrections, fire, emergency medical, dispatch, and other public-safety-related personnel.
The bill also amends § 65.2-301.1, which addresses compensability for injuries to public safety officers in weather-related risk situations. Under the proposal, animal control officers would be included in the general public-safety-officer definition for this workers’ compensation provision, but dispatchers and animal control officers are then specifically excluded from the section’s coverage. As drafted, the bill therefore creates a limited and somewhat mixed effect: it adds animal control officers to the broader definition, but does not extend the weather-risk workers’ compensation protection to them or to dispatchers.
Impact
If enacted, HB1746 would amend §§ 9.1-800, 9.1-801, and 65.2-301.1 of the Code of Virginia. The practical effect would be to recognize animal control officers as public safety officers for purposes of the Commonwealth Public Safety Medal of Valor and the general definitional section, while preserving the existing exclusion of dispatchers and animal control officers from the weather-related workers’ compensation rule in Title 65.2. The bill would therefore affect eligibility for certain honors and the scope of statutory definitions, but it would not broadly expand workers’ compensation coverage to all newly included personnel.
Sentiment
The available voting history suggests limited support in committee. The bill failed to be recommended for reporting in subcommittee by a 2-4 vote, indicating that a majority of members present were not persuaded to advance it. No committee transcript is available, so there is no recorded debate to show affirmative arguments or broader stakeholder support. Overall, the sentiment reflected in the vote is negative or at least insufficiently supportive to move the bill forward at that stage.
Contention
The main point of contention appears to be whether animal control officers should be treated as public safety officers for all purposes of the cited statutes, especially workers’ compensation protections tied to weather-related hazards. The bill’s text also creates an internal distinction by adding animal control officers to the general definition in § 9.1-801 while expressly excluding them, along with dispatchers, from § 65.2-301.1. That split treatment may have raised questions about the scope and consistency of the proposed change, and the subcommittee vote suggests some members were not convinced the expansion was warranted or sufficiently clear.