By Ken Dixon
The Middletown Press, Conn.
HARTFORD, Conn. — A short-coming in Connecticut law is apparently depriving some survivor benefits from the widow of State Trooper Aaron Pelletier, who was recently killed in the line of duty by an alleged hit-and-run driver on Interstate 84.
Gov. Ned Lamont, other top state officials and legislative leaders were conferring with their legal staffs on Monday morning in an attempt to see what can be done to possibly expedite more benefits for Dominique Pelletier and the couple’s two children. Pelletier brought tears to the eyes of more than 1,500 mourners during the June 5 funeral service for her husband when she told law enforcement attending to “Make sure you make time to make memories. It’s OK to say ‘no’ to the overtime shift once in a while.”
Lamont is supportive of a legislative rewrite being worked on by State Comptroller Sean Scanlon and representatives of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, which oversees state police, said Julia Bergman, Lamont spokesperson.
But the issue isn’t likely to be addressed until January when the General Assembly meets again in the regular session. Scanlon said Monday morning that it is too late to add the issue to the call, or the agenda, for the scheduled Wednesday and Thursday special session of the legislature. But Scanlon, the State Police Union and DESPP Commissioner Ronnell Higgins are working together to maximize state and federal benefits.
Immediately after the trooper’s May 30 death, Dominique Pelletier received $100,000 from the state’s new Fallen Officer Fund. A second state account of $100,000 will be paid out to the widow in monthly payments over the next 10 years, along with smaller monthly stipends for the couple’s two young children. National programs for law enforcement killed in the line of duty will also be accessed.
Aaron Pelletier, 34, of Southington, had 11 years of state service and was fully vested in his pension. But he could not receive any of those benefits until age 55 or after 20 years of state service. The issue was first reported in the Republican-American newspaper of Waterbury.
“We’re almost a month after Trooper Pelletier died and this is something that immediately came up as a question to me from Connecticut State Police as they were trying to make sure Mrs. Pelletier had all the information she needed,” Scanlon said in a Monday morning phone interview. “We are working with the family to make sure they have everything they need in the short term while looking at the state policy.”
“We can confirm that Trooper First Class Pelletier served over 11 years for the State of Connecticut due to his service with both the Department of Correction and the State Police,” DESPP spokesman Rick Green said Monday. “As such, he was vested, but in order for a surviving spouse to collect a pension, the deceased must have also either reached the age of 55 or served the state for 25 years. For the families of younger state employees who die in the line of duty, this is a glaring gap in our statutes, and one that we will seek to have closed in the next legislative session.”
Speaker of the House Matt Ritter said Monday that he hoped agency heads could act quickly on the issue. “Trooper Pelletier died in the line of duty and I think we all agree the state should take care of his family,” Ritter said Monday morning. “Hopefully this is something that can be fixed administratively. If not, we will have to work with the State Police union, State Police leadership and the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection to find a solution.”
House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R- North Branford, said Monday he has members of the GOP caucus who want the law changed this week in the special session. But the call for the session cannot be changed at this point, so close to Wednesday.
He noted that a similar issue happened in Bristol, following the deaths of two police officers, Police Lt. Dustin DeMonte and Sgt. Alex Hamzy on Oct. 12, 2022 who were shot while responding to a report of a domestic incident. But local Bristol officials were able to respond quickly to the needs of their families. “Unfortunately, the state is a much-more cumbersome process,” Candelora said.
Candelora said state pension benefits were changed during the Great Recession of 2008 to save money by raising the service standards for state employees. “You don’t envision these scenarios, given where we are as a society divided over discussing the police,” Candelora said, adding that he was an advocate of this year’s Fallen Officer Fund because of it. “It’s hard to run every scenario through and I believe no one contemplated this,” he said, adding: “This needs to be taken up quickly.”
Senate President Pro Temp Martin Looney , D- New Haven, said the issue could become the focus of another special legislative session in November or December, after the elections and before the General Assembly meets again in January.
“Certainly there is an interest in providing survivor benefits,” Looney said on Monday. “He had vested benefits, but died too young to collect them. There ought to some provisions made for surviving families in that case. If Trooper Pelletier had been disabled, he would be eligible for disability payments for the rest of his life.”
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