Requires every city or county social services district to provide a wearable or mobile phone-based panic button to each employee whose job responsibilities necessitate direct interaction with clients in external settings, including but not limited to a client's home, a hospital or medical facility, a school, a childcare center, a community center, or another location where services are provided.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
7833
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
April 11, 2025
___________
Introduced by M. of A. LEVENBERG -- read once and referred to the
Committee on Social Services
AN ACT to amend the social services law, in relation to providing panic
buttons to certain employees of city and county social services
districts
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The social services law is amended by adding a new section
2 63 to read as follows:
3 § 63. Workplace safety equipment for social services employees. 1.
4 Every city or county social services district, as constituted by section
5 sixty-one of this title, shall be required to provide a panic button to
6 each employee whose job responsibilities necessitate direct interaction
7 with clients in external settings, including but not limited to a
8 client's home, a hospital or medical facility, a school, a childcare
9 center, a community center, or another location where services are
10 provided.
11 2. Such panic button shall be a wearable or mobile phone-based button.
12 Mobile phone-based panic buttons may only be installed on employer-pro-
13 vided equipment, and wearable and mobile phone-based panic buttons shall
14 not be used to track employee locations except when the panic button is
15 triggered. Employees shall bear no cost for this equipment.
16 3. For the purposes of this section, "panic button" shall mean a phys-
17 ical button that when pressed immediately contacts the local 9-1-1
18 public safety answering point ("PSAP"), provides that PSAP with employee
19 location information, and dispatches local law enforcement to that
20 location.
21 4. The commissioner of the office of children and family services
22 shall promulgate rules and regulations necessary to implement the
23 provisions of this section.
24 § 2. This act shall take effect one year after it shall have become a
25 law.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD11369-01-5
