Honoring Civil Servants Killed in the Line of Duty Act
The Honoring Civil Servants Killed in the Line of Duty Act would significantly expand and increase federal death gratuities for employees who die in the line of duty and extend similar protections to a broader set of federal workers and related personnel. The bill creates a new benefit (Sec. 5571) that pays a death gratuity to survivors, set initially at $100,000 with automatic annual CPI-based increases, and it raises funeral expenses from $800 to $8,800 (both amounts adjusted over time). It also broadens eligibility, extends coverage to additional agencies and categories (including certain FAA, TSA, VHA personnel, and Foreign Service workers), adds an explicit order of beneficiary distribution, and requires the gratuities to be tax-exempt. The bill provides for offsets against other government benefits where applicable, and it includes a mechanism for emergency supplemental funding when costs exceed available agency appropriations. It applies to deaths occurring on or after enactment. In addition to the expansion of gratuities for civilian federal employees, the bill makes related changes to ensure consistent treatment across related programs, including death benefits for injuries incurred in the line of duty (Section 4 for federal employees and Section 6 for military (Title 10) death gratuities) and for agency-directed payments abroad (Section 5). It also repeals an existing cap on death gratuity authority and reconfigures related statutory headings. Overall, the bill aims to provide larger, CPI-adjusted, tax-exempt death benefits and to broaden who is eligible to receive them.
Key Points
- 1Expanded, CPI-adjusted death gratuity payments and defined recipient order (Section 2)
- 2- Establishes a new Employee death gratuity payments provision (5571) with a base amount of $100,000, adjusted each March 1 by CPI.
- 3- Eligibility defined through the Secretary of Labor’s determination of who is an “employee,” with exclusions for certain individuals; payments made by the agency head from the agency’s appropriations.
- 4- Recipient order of precedence for gratuities: designated beneficiary, surviving spouse, children, grandchildren (where appropriate), surviving parents, executor/administrator, then state-law designations if no other recipient exists.
- 5- Excludes deaths caused by willful misconduct, intentional harm, or intoxication/self-impairment; sets conditions on how the gratuity is determined and paid.
- 6Expanded coverage to more agencies and scenarios (Section 2 and related sections)
- 7- Applies to additional federal workers through amendments to FAA, TSA, and VHA authorities, and extends to Foreign Service personnel and certain uncompensated roles abroad; aligns these with the 5571 framework.
- 8- Applies to deaths occurring after enactment.
- 9Funeral expenses raised and CPI-adjusted (Section 3)
- 10- Increases funeral expense payment from $800 to $8,800, with annual CPI-based adjustments; payments remain tax-exempt.
- 11Death gratuity for injuries in service abroad and related adjustments (Section 5)
- 12- Amends Foreign Service Act provisions to broaden beneficiary language to “beneficiaries,” clarify guidance, reference eligibility criteria, and add offset rules and tax treatment.
- 13- Establishes eligibility and sequencing for survivors similar to the domestic gratuity framework and aligns with cross-agency coordination.
- 14Military death gratuity adjustments and cross-program consistency (Sections 4 and 6)
- 15- Updates the military death gratuity (Title 5/Section 8102a and DoD-related adjustments) to CPI-indexed amounts and ensures appropriate offsets against other benefits.
- 16- Adds tax-exempt status for these payments and requires offsets where applicable.
- 17Emergency supplemental funding mechanism (Section 7)
- 18- Allows agency heads, with OMB concurrence, to seek additional appropriations to cover extraordinary costs from disasters or other incidents, with Congress urged to act within 30 days of a request.
- 19Reforms and housekeeping (Section 2 and related subsections)
- 20- Repeals old death gratuity authority, renames and reorganizes the related subchapter, and makes conforming changes to tables of sections to reflect “payments for disability or death.”