Disability

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Sheriff deputies, firefighters and other county employees are garnering an ever-rising tide of disability payments and it’s largely hidden from public view.

The county retirement system paid $120.1 million to sidelined former safety workers mostly firefighters and sheriff deputies in fiscal 1996, a level nearly triple that of fiscal 1987. Half of that money comes from taxpayers, and the other half from employee contributions.

County firefighters and sheriffs are by far the heaviest users of disability, and successfully file claims at a rate more than four times that of general county workers.

The system has been plagued “by a rising number” of service-connected disability claims from workers who have been injured in department-sanctioned off-duty sports, such as softball, bowling and basketball, according to county retirement system documents.

But no records have been gathered to determine the number of disability recipients who were injured in extra-curricular activities, according to retirement system documents.

Due to the privacy rights of claimants medical records are involved only the board of retirement, and key retirement system personnel, can review disability records.

Officials say they have little choice but to approve the payments, saying that qualifications for disability are set by state law.

“Every case is examined on its merits,” said county pension fund Chief Executive Marsha Richter.

Critics say that loose definitions of disability for safety workers underpin the spiraling level of payouts, and that state law needs to be changed to prevent abuse.

“One of the problems is how flaky the definitions are to qualify for disability,” said Rebeccca Taylor, chief policy consultant for the Sacramento-based California Taxpayers Association. “Really, if anyone wants to be disabled, they can be.”

In the private sector, under state law, a worker is disabled only if he or she cannot find gainful employment.

Firefighters and sheriffs, by contrast, can claim disability if they cannot meet physical standards for “arduous” patrol duty or actual firefighting even if they are now in desk jobs or performing work that is not physically demanding, Richter and others said.

After decades of sheriffs and firefighters hanging up their boots early, the numbers are beginning to add up.

In fiscal 1996, there were 10,749 county safety workers on the job and another 3,407 sidelined, receiving disability pensions, according to the most recent annual report of the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association.

Indeed, for every dollar paid out to safety workers in regular retirement benefits, the county pays $1.41 to safety worker disability payments, according to the retirement association’s report.

There are strong incentives for workers to seek disability retirement.

Disability benefits, unlike retirement benefits, are tax-free, and after getting disability, safety workers are free to take other jobs, whether in the public or private sector.

Critics like Taylor say the bonuses of disability are so enticing that service-connected disability has become the preferred method of retirement for safety employees.

Of the 5,538 county safety workers out on retirement in fiscal 1996, 2,247 were on regular service retirement and 3,291 were on disability retirement.

That trend has held for the past decade, with about 60 percent of the safety employees retired on disability at any given time.

“The public may be unaware of it, but disability is largely how safety officers leave service,” Taylor said.

Representatives of the unions representing county sheriff’s deputies and firefighters did not return calls for comment, and officials with the county retirement system were reluctant to criticize the situation.

“I really have no comment on that,” Simon Russin, chairman of the retirement board of the county employees retirement group, said when asked about the rising tide of disability payments.

“Safety workers get benefits as defined by law,” Russin said.

David Muir, top in-house lawyer and chief counsel for the retirement system, said the county has toughened some of its standards in recent months. Workers claiming disability must be examined by county retirement system-selected doctors. And, beginning in 1995, workers filing for “stress” disability must be seen by two, not just one, psychiatrists.

Also, starting in October of last year, the county retirement system added three in-house lawyers to review disability claims. Previously, the system had relied on County Counsel, the county’s general corps of on-staff lawyers.

Muir said it is too early to see results, but that the use of in-house lawyers is intended to improve oversight of disability claims.

A 13-person disability investigation section also reviews all claims, and makes recommendations to the 10-member board of retirement, which includes one non-voting alternate, and which is chaired by Russin, a veteran employee of the county Department of Health Services.

The board includes four members appointed by the Board of Supervisors, four members elected by county workers, and one by retirees. It is the ultimate arbiter in determining who gets disability. There is no review by another county agency, or the county supervisors.

The board generally approves claims: Of 230 safety disability claims for the first 10 months of fiscal 1997, the board only denied 34, or about 14.8 percent. Other years are about the same.

The board did make an inquiry in 1993 about the rising number of workers seeking disability who were injured in sports.

At that time, an unidentified 35-year-old county safety employee was injured in a departmentally sanctioned off-duty sport.

He was granted a service-connected disability pension costing the county system more than $300,000 despite the employee having worked only 5.5 years for the county.

The board solicited an outside legal opinion, which cited case law showing that courts had upheld such claims in many cases because there was unwritten pressure on employees to participate in such activities.

Critics say the board’s real problem is that it operates in a vacuum, unable to gauge its record on disability claims against other entities.

For example, according to senior retirement system staffers and Russin, the board has never:

– compared the county’s rejection rate on disability claims to other counties;

– compared the county’s increase in disability payments to safety workers to other counties;

– asked why overall disability claim rates in Alameda or San Diego counties, respectively, appear to run at one-third to one-half the rate of Los Angeles, according to a state study;

– asked the average age of disability recipients;

In the 1980s, the California Taxpayers Association examined different police departments nationwide to compare stress claim rates, and discovered that New York City, with three times the number of officers as the City of Los Angeles, granted only two stress claims in 1984, versus 48 in L.A.

No one in the county, or the retirement system, compiles records on the number of stress cases filed by county sheriffs, according to sheriff and retirement system administrators.

Additionally, despite there now being more than 7,500 former county workers receiving disability payments, never in the 60-year history of the retirement system has the county investigated an existing permanent disability recepient, once the claim has been approved.

“We’ve never done that,” said Muir, the system’s chief counsel. “And we do not conduct random or routine checks on those drawing disability.”

In some ways, the disability program for county sheriffs and firefighters is all but structured to promote disability claims.

According to labor contracts and employment rules in place, all county firefighters and sheriffs must be able to handle the most demanding physical requirements of their profession, whether or not they are actually on desk duty, or working in crime labs, or pounding the pavement.

“Every sherriff has to be ready for an altercation,” said Sylvia Miller, county retirement system manager in charge of disability payments.

That means passing certain strength and flexibility requirements something that is going to get more difficult for sheriffs and firefighters who move into middle age.

There are no provisions for keeping a sheriff on in desk jobs, or being transferred into civilian duties in other departments.

The political activism of safety workers, and the apathy of the public and supervisors are one of the roots of the growing disability payments, said Taylor.

“The firefighter, the law enforcement officers, they are active, they give money, they walk door-to-door,” said Taylor, of the taxpayer group. “The public might get mad for 20 minutes, after seeing some guy on television teaching karate while getting disability. (But) without sustained public interest, the status quo will hold,” she said.

Taylor’s group coccasionally has tried to get bills considered by the state Legislature, which would constrain the definition of disability for safety workers. But her efforts have been frustrated by the power of the state’s numerous safety workers, she said.

“We can’t even bring a bill to a vote,” she said.

Muir, retirement system counsel for more than 10 years, said none of the five county supervisors, or their staffs, has ever inquired about, or reviewed, the retirement system outlays in total, let alone disability pensions.

Besides, the system does not need approval from the supervisors: The operating budget of the county pension system comes out of the $21.7 billion pension fund, and thus is beyond the purview of the supervisors.

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