Bill's Language At Issue
Ground Zero Victim Death Payout Lags

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS

Nearly a year after the death of Det. James Zadroga spurred new legislation providing line-of-duty benefits for the families of retired first-responders who succumb to 9/11-related illnesses, his five-year-old daughter has yet to collect a check.

JAMES SLEVIN: Questions city's motives.

Under legislation signed into law last summer by Governor Pataki but not yet enacted because officials are quibbling over its wording, Tylerann Zadroga should be getting monthly payments pegged to her father's final average salary that will continue until she turns 18, or 23 if she enrolls in college.

Lesser and Shorter

Instead she's getting disability pension payments worth 75 percent of his average salary. Those benefits will stop when she turns 12.

Detective Zadroga's Jan. 5, 2006 death was the first directly linked by a New Jersey Medical Examiner to work done at the World Trade Center, citing toxic exposure suffered while he labored at Ground Zero during the city's rescue and recovery efforts.

The findings pushed uniformed union leaders and many lawmakers to fix a loophole in the 9/11 presumptive disability bill Governor Pataki signed in June 2005. It granted disability pensions to sick public employees who worked at numerous sites related to Ground Zero, but didn't specify line-of-duty death benefits to the families of workers who passed away after being forced to retire due to 9/11 health problems.

The Chief-Leader/Ginger Adams Otis ONE YEAR LATER: Joseph Zadroga holds granddaughter Tylerann, who a year after her father's death and six months after a law was passed granting him line-of-duty death status has yet to collect any benefits under the legislation known as the Zadroga Bill.

The World Trade Center Death Benefit legislation - also known as the Zadroga bill - signed by Governor Pataki last summer was meant to correct that. But the Bloomberg administration has pointed to a contradiction in the measure's intent and existing state pension laws, which stipulate that line-of-duty pensions are for active members only.

'Impossible to Apply'

Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the Mayor's Office, said "one of the bill's fundamental flaws" was that it tried to grant line-of-duty death benefits to retired workers.

"The law as written is impossible to apply," Mr. Loeser said during a phone interview Dec. 28. "You can't be simultaneously active and retired at the same time."

The Zadroga family and the families of at least three other first-responders who developed fatal illnesses rooted in their 9/11 recovery work have been unable to access their line-of-duty benefits although their claims were approved.

According to longstanding pension laws, the state pays 50 percent of the line-of-duty death benefits and the city pays 50 percent.

James Slevin, the vice president of the Uniformed Firefighters' Association who oversees the union's interests in Albany, said he was at a loss to explain the city's stance.

'What Does City Gain?'

"I don't see what gain the city gets from taking this position," he commented. "The city is legally obligated to pay its 50 percent. The issue it's arguing pertains to the 50 percent the state must pay - and the state isn't making this an issue at all. It's ready to pay."

Mr. Slevin said that although he wasn't aware of any benefits being paid out to date, it was inevitable that eventually the claims would be processed.

"And we've already had commitments from state legislators that they will do whatever they have to and get the language fixed," he added.

Mr. Slevin said two firefighter families have applied for benefits under the Zadroga Bill. One of them is the family of Firefighter Stephen Johnson, 48, who died in late 2005 from what is believed to be a 9/11-related illness. He had retired in good health on a normal service pension but fell sick soon after; his condition deteriorated rapidly.

A second firefighter family tried for benefits under the presumptive disability law and was denied. Mr. Slevin said the union was presenting a new claim for line-of-duty benefits. There were several other eligible families also preparing claims, he said.

Tough Holiday

Linda Zadroga and her husband Joseph have assumed care of their son's daughter, who also lost her mother about a year before James died. Reached by phone Dec. 28, Ms. Zadroga said Tylerann had a subdued but happy Christmas.

"It's been a hard one because it's the first one without James, and the anniversary of his death is so close," she said. "Tylerann is a kid and she was happy when she saw all the presents, but later she said that all she wanted was her daddy back."

Found Carbon in Lungs

The week before the holiday, the Zadrogas received the results of a tissue analysis run on a piece of their son's lung by the U.S. Department of Defense Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

It found elements of "anthracosilicotic material likely containing carbon and silica present," as well as other materials that seemed to support the original ME findings that Detective Zadroga had lung-tissue inflammation linked to "a history of exposure to toxic fumes and dust."

Ms. Zadroga, noting that city officials questioned her son's autopsy results when they were first released, said the confirmation from Federal authorities "in a strange way, was our Christmas present."

Michael J. Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, said he hoped to have a chapter amendment to the death benefit law passed by the end of this month.

The union has created a fund for Tylerann, and currently pays some of her medical expenses.