NOTE: This column is a new feature of CALEA Update that will appear periodically. Its purpose is to inform CALEA’s clients of legislative and legal events that may be of general interest to them.

In 1999, many state laws dealing with workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance were changed. Several of these changes affect law enforcement personnel.

The Indiana Commissioner of the unemployment insurance program is now permitted to release information obtained from any person in the administration of the Indiana Employment and Training Services Act, and the records of the department relating to the unemployment tax or the payment of benefits, to the Department of State Revenue or to State or local law enforcement agencies, only if there is an agreement that the information will be kept confidential and used for legitimate governmental purposes. Employees of these agencies who violate the provision are subject to criminal penalties.

In Maryland, a paid law enforcement employee of the Department of Natural Resources is presumed to have a compensable occupational disease, suffered in the line of duty, if the employee is suffering from lyme disease and was not suffering from the disease before the assignment to an outdoor wooded environment.

Workers’ compensation coverage in Wyoming is now provided to volunteers assisting law enforcement agencies in conducting patrols, reporting suspicious activities, or controlling traffic and crowds.

A jail officer with a Michigan sheriff's department should have been compensated for the time he spent outside his regular job enrolled in a road patrol officer training program because his participation in the program involved productive work, according to a divided Sixth Circuit decision. The majority held that a lower court applied the wrong test in rejecting the employee’s claim for overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The proper test required consideration of whether a worker performs any productive work while in the training, which the majority maintains was the case since the employee performed all the regular duties of a road patrol officer while in training.

State and local government employers may require their workers to take time off to reduce their accrued compensatory time, which was allocated in lieu of overtime pay under the FLSA, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 ruling. Affirming a Fifth Circuit decision, the Supreme Court holds that nothing in the FLSA or Department of Labor (DOL) regulations prohibits the Harris County (TX) Sheriff's Department from compelling deputy sheriffs to use their comp time rather than allowing it to build up. The Supreme Court majority rejected the DOL's position that public employers can only direct their employees to use accrued comp time if there is a prior agreement between the parties giving the employer that right.