Kane County Reporter

Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law on May 10 the Act-of-Duty Bill that will provide disability payments for first responders who got COVID-19.

Through HB 3162, Chicago police officers and firefighters will retroactively receive disability benefits for between March 9, 2020, and June 30, 2021, when they weren’t able to work because of having the coronavirus, a press release said.

“Since the darkest days of the pandemic, our first responders — police officers, firefighters, and EMS workers alike — have been on the ground, putting their own health and safety at risk to protect others,” Pritzker said in the release. “When our first responders are disabled on the job, they deserve comprehensive benefits. HB 3162, a bipartisan Act-of-Duty Bill, ensures they get the benefits they are entitled to.”

Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza is among the bill’s supporters because her brother, Chicago police Sgt. Joaquin Mendoza, became critically ill from the coronavirus and was denied full disability benefits by the Policemen’s Annuity & Benefit Fund of Chicago.

“Chicago Police Sgt. Joaquin Mendoza thought he wasn’t going to live to see his 57th birthday after he spent more than two months in the hospital with COVID-19. He not only survived but was the toast of honor at a party last month,” the Chicago Sun-Times posted on Facebook on Dec. 10, 2021.

Susana Mendoza said in the release that Chicago police and firefighters shouldn’t “have to die to qualify for full COVID disability benefits.”

“And that was the unfortunate message the city's pension disability board was sending with its rulings against my brother and Officer Diana Cordova-Nestad – and the other first responders disabled by COVID in the days before vaccines were available who are waiting to go before the board,” Susana Mendoza said in the release. “That's unforgivable. I can't thank everyone enough - my sponsors, Representative (Jay) Hoffman (D-Swansea) and Senator (Bill) Cunningham (D-Chicago), legislators, and Governor Pritzker, for fixing this injustice for my brother and all our first responders.”

A law passed during the pandemic said that first responders statewide would be entitled to protections if they contracted the coronavirus “and considered it would be automatically assumed that they caught the virus while on the job,” Firehouse said. Because Chicago firefighters and police are on a separate disability system, the law didn’t apply to them.