Right move on disability payments

Editorial, Gazette, Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Two-tiered system would save money, create equity.

Given the sobering statistics about disability benefits for police officers brought to light in multiple reports from Montgomery's Office of the Inspector General, the County Council is long overdue for action to reform the payment system.
 
In 2008, the inspector general reported that more than 60 percent of the 93 police officers who retired between July 1, 2004 and March 1, 2008, qualified for disability benefits, which pay at least two-thirds of an officer's salary. In the report, the inspector general wrote that the payment process exhibited "behavior that we believe a prudent person would consider abusive."

To help curb any abuses, council members Phil Andrews, Duchy Trachtenberg, Valerie Ervin and Roger Berliner are pushing for a bill to create a two-tiered system — currently in place for the county's firefighters — that would grant lesser benefits for officers with less severe injuries.

According to the proposal, a total incapacity benefit would be awarded if the disability would prevent the employee from working for at least one year. Partial incapacity would be awarded for employees who are unable to perform at least one essential function of his or her current job, but who could be employed elsewhere.

A partial incapacity benefit would be at least 52.5 percent of final earnings annually; a total incapacity benefit of at least 70 percent of final earnings annually. The bill is prospective, meaning that officers now receiving benefits would continue with their current payments.

In all, the changes could save the county about $1.5 million in police disability payments.

But this bill is about more than financial savings. It's a matter of just and proper treatment for employees who have been injured, based on their ability to function in the workplace. The idea that an officer who loses use of a trigger finger should receive the same treatment as one who is wholly paralyzed conflicts with accepted principles of equity.

The County Council has been moving in a positive direction in changing some of the practices that bleed dollars bit by bit, like the repeal of pension benefits based on cost of living increases that were never given and the elimination of misused tuition assistance programs. Creating a tiered disability payment system for police would be another step.

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