By Rick Maze Times staff writer

The Senate reluctantly agreed Wednesday to have the federal government provide income protection to mobilized reservists who are federal workers and to make retroactive increases in death benefits available to the families of all service members who die on active duty, not just those who die in combat.The two benefits improvements passed by voice vote after Senate Republican leaders tried but failed to derail the legislation during debate on the wartime supplemental funding bill. The vote came just a day after Senate leaders used parliamentary moves to block an amendment that would have increased funding for veterans’ health care as part of the wartime funding bill.

The federal worker amendment survived only after senators voted 61-39 to reject an attempt to table, or set aside, the measure.

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., one of the co-sponsors, said the proposal would allow National Guard and reserve who are federal employees to maintain their normal salary when called to active service “by requiring that federal agencies make up the difference between their military pay and what they would have earned on their federal job.”

Allen said about 120,000 of the 1.2 million of the National Guard and reserve members are federal employees, and about 43,000 have been mobilized.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., another amendment cosponsor, said the average federal worker in the reserves loses $358 a month in pay because their active-duty military salaries are less than their federal civilian wages.

The death benefits amendment, sponsored by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., survived on a 75-25 vote against a motion to table it.

The amendment applies to a provision in the bill, requested by the Bush administration, to increase the military death gratuity and the maximum Servicemembers Group Life Insurance payout. The death gratuity, now $12,420, would rise to $100,000 while maximum SGLI coverage, now capped at $250,000, would rise to $400,000.

Both increases are retroactive to Oct. 7, 2001, with the bill specifying that families of service members who died between that date and the date the bill becomes law would receive a $238,000 lump-sum retroactive payment, which the bill calls an “additional death gratuity.”

Under the administration plan, the more generous death benefits would apply only to active-duty deaths resulting from combat in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom or in the performance of military duties outside of combat. That definition excludes off-duty deaths, including those that occur while commuting to and from work.

Kerry said the benefits, “as a matter of principle, ought to go to any American who loses their life while serving our country, and we should not draw a distinction between that kind of service.”

There was no controversy over another Kerry amendment that would allow the families of deceased service members to remain in government housing for up to one year after the death, instead of the 180 days allowed under current law. That measure was approved by voice vote.

Defense officials have told lawmakers that installation commanders routinely allow families to stay longer than 180 days if they ask to, but Kerry said they shouldn’t be forced to ask.

“Given all of the disruption the loss of a [service member] brings to their lives, I propose allowing survivors the option to keep their housing for a whole year as they deal with the countless other challenges,” Kerry said.