Senate committee advances technical fix to firefighters' workers' compensation list

Senate Bill 1215, introduced by Senator Payne, moved forward from the Senate Finance Committee after sponsors described it as a technical correction to the workers' compensation statute for firefighters.

Sponsor Senator Payne told the committee the bill does not add or remove any covered cancers; rather, it reforms a paragraph of enumerated cancers into a column format to eliminate ambiguity introduced by a misplaced comma. Payne said identical text had been inadvertently included in the peace officer section during drafting; the committee considered an amendment that reverts the police list to match current statute.

Tom Carretto, executive vice president of Professional Firefighters of Arizona, testified in support, saying denials for firefighter cancer claims were tied to the punctuation and formatting in the statute. "We can attribute all of the adenoma cancer denials to this lack of one comma in legislation," Carretto said, urging the correction to align statute with legislative intent.

A committee member moved to adopt a four‑page amendment dated 01/30/2026 and to return the bill with a do‑pass recommendation. After a voice vote and a roll call, the committee passed SB 12‑15 as amended by a 6–1 vote. The committee chair recorded the result and thanked witnesses; the bill will proceed according to the Senate's next steps.

The committee record shows the amendment was presented as technical and limited in scope; debate focused on confirming the change would neither add nor remove coverage for illnesses listed in the statute. The committee's action clarified the legislative intent described by the sponsor and firefighting officials.