119-hr540

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 540 Introduced in House

    (IH) ]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
 1st Session
 H. R. 540

 To require the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to 
 review and make certain revisions to the Standard Occupational 
 Classification System, and for other purposes.

_______________________________________________________________________

 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 January 16, 2025

Mrs. Torres of California (for herself and Mr. Fitzpatrick) introduced 
 the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Education 
 and Workforce

_______________________________________________________________________

 A BILL

 To require the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to 
 review and make certain revisions to the Standard Occupational 
 Classification System, and for other purposes.

 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

 This Act may be cited as the ``Supporting Accurate Views of 
Emergency Services Act of 2025'' or the ``911 SAVES Act of 2025''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

 Congress finds the following:

    (1) Public safety telecommunicators play a critical role in 
 emergency response.

    (2) The work that public safety telecommunicators perform 
 goes far beyond merely relaying information between the public 
 and first responders.

    (3) When responding to reports of missing, abducted, and 
 sexually exploited children, the information obtained and 
 actions taken by public safety telecommunicators form the 
 foundation for an effective response.

    (4) When a hostage taker or suicidal person calls 9-1-1, 
 the first contact is with the public safety telecommunicator 
 whose negotiation skills can prevent the situation from getting 
 worse.

    (5) During active shooter incidents, public safety 
 telecommunicators coach callers through first aid and give 
 advice to prevent further harm, all while collecting vital 
 information to provide situational awareness for responding 
 officers.

    (6) When police officers, firefighters, and emergency 
 medical technicians are being shot at, their calls for help go 
 to public safety telecommunicators.

    (7) Public safety telecommunicators are often communicating 
 with people in great distress, harm, fear, or injury, while 
 employing their experience and training to recognize a critical 
 piece of information.

    (8) In fact, there have been incidents in which public 
 safety telecommunicators, recognizing the sound of a racked 
 shotgun, have prevented serious harm or death of law 
 enforcement officers who would have otherwise walked into a 
 trap.

    (9) This work comes with an extreme emotional and physical 
 impact that is compounded by long hours and the around-the-
 clock nature of the job.

    (10) Indeed, research has suggested that public safety 
 telecommunicators are exposed to trauma that may lead to the 
 development of posttraumatic stress disorder.

    (11) Recognizing the risks associated with exposure to 
 traumatic events, some agencies provide critical incident 
 stress debriefing

    (CISD) teams to lessen the psychological 
 impact and accelerate recovery for public safety 
 telecommunicators and first responders, alike.

    (12) The Standard Occupational Classification system is 
 designed and maintained solely for statistical purposes, and is 
 used by Federal statistical agencies to classify workers and 
 jobs into occupational categories for the purpose of 
 collecting, calculating, analyzing, or disseminating data.

    (13) Occupations in the Standard Occupational 
 Classification are classified based on work performed and, in 
 some cases, on the skills, education, or training needed to 
 perform the work.

    (14) Classifying public safety telecommunicators as 
 Protective Service Occupations would correct an inaccurate 
 representation in the Standard Occupational Classification, 
 recognize these professionals for the lifesaving work they 
 perform, and better align the Standard Occupational 
 Classification with related classification systems.

SEC. 3. REVISION OF STANDARD OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM.

    (a) In General.--The Director of the Office of Management and 
Budget (in this Act referred to as the ``Director'') shall, as part of 
the first revision process of the Standard Occupational Classification 
system occurring after the date of enactment of this Act, consider 
establishing a separate code for public safety telecommunicators as a 
subset of protective service occupations.

    (b) Report to Congress.--If the Director decides not to establish 
the separate code for public safety telecommunicators described in 
subsection

    (a) , the Director shall, not later than 60 days after the 
Director announces in the Federal Register the final decision of the 
revision process described in such subsection, submit to the Committee 
on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate and the 
Committee on Education and the Workforce of the House of 
Representatives a report explaining why such separate code was not 
established.
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