{"id":259833,"date":"2026-08-05T19:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/259833\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T19:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:02:13","slug":"bipartisan-bills-on-workplace-violence-prevention-move-forward-in-pennsylvania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/259833\/","title":{"rendered":"Bipartisan bills on workplace violence prevention move forward in Pennsylvania"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Harrisburg, PA \u2014 Legislation in Pennsylvania aimed at protecting public school employees from workplace violence and funding health care facility threat assessments has advanced in the state House with bipartisan support.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.palegis.us\/legislation\/bills\/2025\/hb2341\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">H.B. 2341<\/a>, sponsored by Rep. Jason Ortitay (R-Allegheny\/Washington) and approved by the House Health Committee on June 2, would establish a health care facility threat assessment grant program. The program would help facilities conduct security risk assessments and upgrade safety measures, which could include purchasing equipment such as metal detectors, lighting, emergency communication tools, deadbolt locks and trauma kits.<\/p>\n<p>The grants also could be used for training on safety, security, and threat awareness and response.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are important initiatives to help vulnerable workers at a time when attacks are sadly too common,\u201d bill co-sponsor Rep. Thomas Mehaffie (R-Dauphin) said in a press release.<\/p>\n<p>Mehaffie also sponsored <a href=\"https:\/\/www.palegis.us\/legislation\/bills\/text\/PDF\/2025\/0\/HB1919\/PN3483\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">H.B. 1919<\/a>, which would guarantee a public school employee injured in an assault by a student, parent or guardian full pay and benefits for up to a year while they recover.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, approved by the House Education Committee on June 2, would also ensure injured public school employees \u2013 including teachers, social workers and aides \u2013 don\u2019t lose accumulated sick or paid leave and that they continue to receive full pension credit during recovery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m hopeful the bipartisan support of these measures will help them get quick review and overwhelming approval by the full House,\u201d Mehaffie said in the release. \u201cThese are common sense and overdue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harrisburg, PA \u2014 Legislation in Pennsylvania aimed at protecting public school employees from workplace violence and funding health&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[110232,28,30,29,43299,3860,3316,61780],"class_list":["post-259833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-health-care-worker-safety","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-risk-management","tag-security","tag-teachers","tag-workplace-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}