LPP UPDATE
Legal coverage for Class III officers
Last month, the LPP Committee met for sever-
al hours in order to discuss future additions and
changes, including clarifications for the Legal Pro-
tection Plan (LPP).
The most revolutionary of the coverage additions
is the new coverage for Class III officers. The Legal
Protection Plan will offer a plan that is specifically
designed for retired officers who have been hired as
Class III officers assigned to schools.
In order to be eligible for coverage, members
must be in good standing with the Local from which
they retired as well as Local 600. They must be working in accor-
dance with P.L. 2016, c. 68 and all of its conditions for a municipal
police department.
The plan design for the Class III coverage will be as follows:
• Defense coverage in the amount of $50,000 for civil coverage
and $50,000 in criminal coverage for legal defense for on-
duty incidents only. These events must have occurred on
school property or in the course and scope of their duties as
a Class III officer.
• Legal defense coverage in the amount of $1,000 per internal
investigation and a total of $3,500 per year for criminal in-
vestigations. All aggregate coverage amounts will include any
costs for fees and experts.
Please take note that since that there will be no coverage for
disciplinary matters, Class III officers have very limited job pro-
tections. Should this class of officer be provided protections in the
future, the committee will revisit this portion of the plan.
The cost for this plan will be $125 per year or any portion thereof.
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NEW JERSEY COPS
■ JUNE 2018
A member may join at any time of the year, but coverage will com-
mence on the date that payment and Local 600 membership are
verified by staff. Any events that occur prior to the assigned enroll-
ment date will not be covered.
The plan outline and application can be found on the LPP tab of
the State PBA web site.
Other topics discussed at the meeting were compensation rates
for the lawyers, which will be reconsidered at a later date, along
with insurance coverage limits for lawyers’ liability policies.
With regards to L.E.O.S.A. coverage, the committee has decided
to only issue coverage to members who possess an RPO Card for
the time being. The interpretation of the federal law has not been
clarified. President Colligan and Executive Vice President Kovar will
be meeting with the State Police Firearms unit early next month,
and we will have a better ability to determine appropriate coverage.
The last issue that needs to be addressed is the continuing saga
of the issuance of “Brady” letters by county prosecutors. These let-
ters, when placed in a member’s personnel file, have the ability to
remove officers from performing their duties without any sort of
due process.
Once again, President Colligan and Executive Vice President Ko-
var have asked the attorney general to clarify procedures for these
situations. In the meantime, the committee has decided that it will
treat these letters like any other disciplinary matter; if the letter is
cause for a disciplinary action, the full coverage under the Legal
Protection Plan will be triggered. If a letter is issued and there are
no consequences (a loss of time, rank or salary) that would normal-
ly trigger the plan, coverage will be held until such time that the
aforementioned employment issues are affected. d