The State Board of Mediation and Arbitration has awarded long-term disability pay to a former Newtown police officer, who left his job after the December 2012 shooting incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The officer stated that he was unable to continue work as a police officer after having suffered the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder due to the intensity of the incident.

Thomas Bean, who is now age 40, reportedly will be eligible to receive approximately $380,000 in disability payments from the town.

Bean, who started work as a Newtown police officer in November 2000, would be eligible to receive disability payments until November 2025, under the state board’s decision. A document listing the state board’s May 18 decision was released on May 21.

Bean has been receiving half-pay from the town while on long-term disability. Those payments were set to expire in June.

Because the town had challenged Bean’s claim that he was due to receive long-term disability pay extending until 2025, the matter was submitted to the state board for a decision.

The town’s insurance coverage does not provide for such an extended period of a police officer receiving half-pay, only allowing such payment to run for two years.

In a 2013 statement, Bean said, “The town government is doing everything they can to make this more difficult on me and my family simply because they did not get the proper long-term [disability] insurance policy that is in line with our union contract.”

“The union contract says that I am supposed to receive 50 percent of my salary until my normal retirement date. The town only has a two-year [disability] policy.

The town attorney recently told the union that the town will not negotiate with us and will not pay beyond the two years. The town attorney stated that the union or myself would have to take them to court,” Bean then said.

“I do not have the training or experience to make what I was making as a police officer, so new on-the-job experience is what I am going to need, and that is going to need to start before [the town stops] paying me in two years,” he said in 2013.