Sponsors (86)
The bill increases federal recognition and data accuracy for 911 telecommunicators—improving planning and the potential for future supports—while not itself creating funding or benefits and risking rushed implementation and short-term data disruption.
Public safety telecommunicators (911 dispatchers and related PSTs) would be officially classified as protective-service workers in the federal SOC, increasing their federal recognition and visibility.
Local governments and emergency response agencies would get more accurate occupational data for telecommunicators, improving staffing, resource planning, and emergency-response workforce planning.
Public safety telecommunicators could become more likely to receive targeted training, support, and mental‑health resources as they are aligned with other protective-service occupations.
Public safety telecommunicators would gain recognition without guaranteed new funding or benefits—reclassification alone does not create pay, benefits, or immediate material support.
The 30-day deadline to implement the classification could strain OMB resources and produce a rushed or technical decision with limited stakeholder input, reducing the quality of the outcome.
Changing occupational codes can cause short-term disruption in data series, complicating trend analysis and planning for researchers and local governments.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Requires OMB to classify public safety telecommunicators as Protective Service Occupations in the federal SOC within 30 days of enactment.
Official title: 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.
Introduced January 22, 2025 by Norma Judith Torres · Last progress January 22, 2025
Requires the Office of Management and Budget to reclassify public safety telecommunicators (911 dispatchers and similar 911 call workers) as a Protective Service Occupation in the federal Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. The Department must make this change within 30 days of the law taking effect. The bill explains that public safety telecommunicators perform critical, high-stress life‑saving work and that classifying them as protective service workers will correct a perceived misclassification and better align statistics and related classification systems.