By DAVID CRUZ 

Last week’s building fire at Jerome and Sedgwick avenues renewed calls from the FDNY to increase disability payments to new firefighters should they be injured on the job.

The rallying cry from the Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA), the union representing firefighters, was amplified by Bronx elected officials who have joined a fight to increase disability benefits to injured firefighters.

Currently, firefighters hired after 2009 can only qualify for $10,000 in disability benefits, which ranks to $27 a day. Coverage went into effect after then Governor David Paterson vetoed a yearly bill that allows new firefighters to be covered as a Tier II employee, providing disability benefits equal to three-quarters of their salary should they experience an on-the-job injury. For 23 years, previous governors had seen the bill through.

The UFA, under its president Steve Cassidy, is pressing the New York City Council to get state clearance to consider raising disability payments to firefighters.

“It’s horrific that the top leadership in City Hall is saying that $10,000 a year is all the disability protection that a New York City firefighter – the best trained firefighter in the world – will receive if permanently disabled on the job,” said Steve Cassidy, head of the UFA.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. also sounded the alarm in upping benefits to firefighters, saying disability payments should equate the commitment to the job free of how much time was put into the job.

The latest effort is another attempt by the UFA to underscore the need to increase disability payments, which the city says it cannot afford.