will police and firefighters could soon have an early retirement option the so-called burnout bill is intended to help with the mental and physical exhaustion that comes with the job by letting those Public Safety workers retire with a reduced pension after 20 years of service regardless of their age it's got a lot of backers but as senior correspondent Joanna gagas reports there's concern about the burden on taxpayers we have other bills to deal with the you know PTSD and other behavioral health issues independently but this is just another tool we put in our toolbox to help our members when they say you know what I just can't do this anymore I have to get out it's called the burnout Bill a piece of legislation approved by the assembly today that would allow Public Safety workers police fire and EMS to leave the job after 20 years while still collecting some portion of their pension we see a member struggling our number one goal is to get them help to make sure that they can deal with it and cope with it and if this is their out then then you know more power to them and we wanted we want it to be there for him the burnout bill is nothing new in Trenton in fact the put in place by Governor Christy Whitman in 2 that way with under the Chris Christie Administration then brought back by Governor Murphy in 2021 but in a temporary bill that sunsets this may the assembly followed the Senate's lead that also passed the bill unanimously with the full support of Public Safety worker unions the stress levels in this job are extraordinarily High suicides are a very real problem in in law enforcement epidemic levels worth of suicides and so the idea behind this this concept is if you're so burned out that the only reason that you're staying on the job is to get to your 25th year to collect a full pension you should be provided with a window to respect the 20 years that you put in in a very difficult profession the purpose of the Bill's Sunset was to reevaluate whether Public Safety workers would take advantage of the provision and would lead to a mass Exodus of First Responders leaving the field of the tens of thousands in the state only around 300 took the early leave and pension in but still the New Jersey Association of counties is opposed to it now you have someone who you have to pay out of the pension system who's no longer paying into the pension system so that increases the unfunded accrued liability of the pension system and that's where the proponents of this bill say there's a de minimis impact and we haven't seen the actuary study that the proponents of the bill I guess shared with the legislature there was no fiscal note conducted by the office of legislative services with respect to my friends from the association of counties their math is simply wrong there has been no negative Financial impact to the pension system because of this the actuaries built in an assumption when this law was reinstated that two percent of of eligible members were going to take advantage of this the actual number is about point zero three percent the numbers break down to around 280 police officers and about 20 firefighters who took the early retirement option meaning they'll only receive half of their last year's salary as a pension instead of the 60 to 70 percent for longer serving responders and about half will lose health care benefits altogether according to donadio depending on their collective bargaining agreements with the municipalities they serve there's a lot of data a lot of research the reality is when a police officer or fireman is at 20 years and they are burnt out we should not force them to be there for another five years not good for anybody especially the mental health of the officer I think there's a lot of data to show this is not even any real cost to the state I get the intent of the bill I don't want to sound like you know we're cold and we're just looking at the numbers I get it but we never got those objective numbers from either the legislature or the executive branch and that's that's that's a that's an issue I think still the bills passed both houses and looks poised for a signature from the governor providing relief to First Responders who say they're truly burned out I'm Joanna Gagis NJ Spotlight news [Music] [Music]