Our View: Don’t politicize issue of survivor benefits.

Florida House leaders wouldn’t really use a unanimously passed Senate bill that would enhance benefits for survivors of fallen first responders as a political bargaining chip, would they?

That’s the shameful scenario playing out in the state Capitol sagelately, after House Republican leaders rolled their own version of the Senate bill into a more contentious measure that would make broader changes in pension policy.

The House measure passed the lower chamber on a largely party-line vote Wednesday, but its broader changes face opposition in the Senate. Now, their defeat in the upper chamber could doom the survivors benefits, too

“Sometimes this place is pretty callous,” House Democratic leader Mark Pafford told the Sentinel this week, displaying a talent for understatement.

Senate Bill 7012, the survivors benefits bill, was inspired by the tragedy of Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Pine, shot to death in the line of duty in February 2014. Pine, survived by his wife and three small children, had been on the force fewer than three years. Because he had chosen the state investment plan for his retirement rather than the traditional pension plan, his family was eligible to receive only the amount he had contributed during his few years on the force and a one-time death benefit. Had he chosen to enroll in the pension plan instead, his family would have been awarded an ongoing monthly benefit equal to 50 percent of his salary at the time of his death.

SB 7012 would raise the monthly survivors benefit for first responders killed on or after July 1, 2013 from 50 percent to 100 percent of their salary. It also would allow the families of fallen first responders enrolled in the investment plan to qualify for those enhanced benefits. It was co-sponsored by all 40 Senate members — a remarkable demonstration of bipartisan support.

State and local government agencies with first responders on their payrolls would have to bump up their pension contributions to cover the benefits promised under SB 7012. But at a collective annual cost of about $25 million for those agencies, the Senate bill is not close to busting Florida’s $80 billion budget.

A similar bill was poised for passage a year ago when the Legislature broke up three days early in an unrelated standoff over healthcare policy. That should have convinced House and Senate leaders not to let the bill fall victim to politics again this year.

House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, a Merritt Island Republican, has pointed out that his chamber’s proposal for survivors benefits would in fact help more families, because it would apply to first responders killed since 2002. But the speaker also supported its inclusion in the broader measure, which directs all public employees hired starting July 2017 into the state’s investment plan unless they choose to be enrolled in the pension plan.

Ironically, this broader measure is a modest and reasonable change to the state’s outdated retirement policy. Most private employers, and many public employers in other states, began switching their employees to investment plans years ago. It’s better for employees who are likely to change jobs after a few years, and better for taxpayers in the long run, because it ultimately should reduce the state’s pension liabilities.

Crisafulli and other House leaders have a good case to make to their Senate counterparts to support the broader measure on its merits. It’s unnecessary — and unjust — for them to hold the survivors benefits hostage. The two issues must be decoupled.

Even in the Florida Legislature, some causes are too important to get bogged down in petty politics.