(1) Public safety telecommunicators play a crit-
ical role in emergency response. 
(2) The work that public safety telecommunica-
tors perform goes far beyond merely relaying infor-
mation between the public and first responders. 
(3) When responding to reports of missing, ab-
ducted, and sexually exploited children, the informa-
tion obtained and actions taken by public safety tele-
communicators 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 safe-
ty telecommunicator whose negotiation skills can 
prevent the situation from getting worse. 
(5) During active shooter incidents, public safe-
ty 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 emer-
gency 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, 
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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 expo-
sure to traumatic events, some agencies provide crit-
ical incident stress debriefing (CISD) teams to less-
en the psychological impact and accelerate recovery 
for public safety telecommunicators and first re-
sponders, alike. 
(12) The Standard Occupational Classification 
system is designed and maintained solely for statis-
tical purposes, and is used by Federal statistical 
agencies to classify workers and jobs into occupa-
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tional categories for the purpose of collecting, calcu-
lating, 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 train-
ing needed to perform the work. 
(14) Classifying public safety telecommunica-
tors as Protective Service Occupations would correct 
an inaccurate representation in the Standard Occu-
pational 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 CLASSI-
FICATION 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 estab-
lishing a separate code for public safety telecommunica-
tors as a subset of protective service occupations. 
(b) REPORT TO CONGRESS.—If the Director decides 
not to establish the separate code for public safety tele-
communicators described in subsection (a), the Director 
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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 Com-
mittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
of the Senate and the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce of the House of Representatives a report ex-
plaining why such separate code was not established. 
Æ 
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