RALEIGH
The family of Sgt. Howard Plouff, a Winston-Salem police officer who was killed in the line of duty, will receive expanded financial benefits from Plouff's government retirement fund.
Both chambers of the N.C. General Assembly have approved legislation that will retroactively change state law to benefit Plouff's widow and children.
Plouff was shot and killed on Feb. 23, 2007, while responding to a fight outside the Red Rooster bar on Jonestown Road. Plouff had worked for the Winston-Salem Police Department for 17½ years.
That put him just short of a 20-year legal cutoff.
If he had reached the cutoff, his widow, Joyce Plouff, would have been eligible for lifetime monthly payments from Plouff's retirement fund. But because Plouff was killed before he reached 20 years of service, his widow qualified only for a single lump-sum payment out of the retirement fund.
Joyce Plouff and state legislators from Forsyth County argued that that wasn't fair. They said that the state should do more to take care of surviving family members of veteran officers who are killed in the line of duty.
Plouff had spent his career paying into his retirement fund and had planned to use the fund to retire and take care of his wife and two daughters.
Forsyth legislators rewrote the law to move the cutoff back to 15 years, and they made the change retroactive so it would apply to Plouff.
The change was approved unanimously by the N.C. House yesterday. The Senate passed an identical bill on April 14. Gov. Bev Perdue is expected to sign the legislation.
■ James Romoser can be reached at 919-210-6794 or at jromoser@wsjournal.com.
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