Stress Pension Abuse Assailed : Bradley Calls for Reform of L.A. Police System

Mayor Tom Bradley lashed out Thursday at Los Angeles police officers who file questionable stress pension claims and called for immediate action, including a City Charter amendment, to curb abuse of the pension system.

“It’s a disservice to the conscientious, hard-working policeman when some few take advantage of the system and falsely or fraudulently make claims,” Bradley said.

The mayor, himself a retired Los Angeles police officer who served 20 years on the force, noted that stress pensions were “unheard of” in his day.

Bradley said he has asked the Board of Pension Commissioners, which granted 80% of the stress claims it heard last year, to “be tougher” in awarding benefits that can amount to millions of dollars over an officer’s lifetime, when cost-of-living increases are included.

Bradley’s call for changes in the pension system came in response to a series of articles in The Times detailing a dramatic rise in stress-related disability pensions in the Los Angeles Police Department.

The Times found that an increasing number of officers are winning stress pensions, often after they have reached dead-ends in their careers, have been the subject of disciplinary action and even criminal charges.

During the last five years, 175 police officers won tax-free lifetime pensions for disabilities where stress was a primary factor--accounting for almost half of the disability pensions granted, according to Pension Department statistics.

Found to be incapable of performing even light-duty police desk work, these disabled officers are then free to go get other jobs and still collect their pension checks, unlike in other cities where their benefits would be reduced.

Business as Usual

At the weekly meeting of the pension board Thursday it was business as usual--except that Commissioner Bert Cohen, who has admitted sometimes falling asleep at pension hearings, arrived with a sleeping bag that he jokingly unrolled on the floor next to him.

As another joke, Pension Department staff members had planned to present a gong to the board members, a reference to one attorney’s remark that board meetings resembled an “administrative ‘Gong Show.’ ”

The presentation was scuttled, however, when Commission President David Bow Woo showed up grim-faced for the morning session.

Bradley said he favors putting a charter amendment on the ballot “as soon as possible” that would enable pension commissioners to lower an officer’s minimum pension award to 10% of his salary, instead of the current 50% mandatory minimum.

In proposing a charter amendment, the mayor pitted himself against the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League, a union that represents most of the department’s 6,900 officers.

Fred Tredy, league director, said that reducing benefits will not curb the rising number of stress-related pension claims.

The 10% minimum was recommended in a 1983 report by City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie. But Bradley said the report has “languished” in a City Council committee chaired by Peggy Stevenson. Bradley said he will now try to “dislodge it.”

Will Be Reviewed

Stevenson aide June Cassidy said the report will be presented to the full council for review next week.

Councilman Marvin Braude, chairman of the Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee, who pushed Stevenson to release the report, said there is “tremendous rip-off potential” in the pension system for officers with stress claims.

He said he will press to “do something significant” by putting Comrie’s proposal on the June ballot. However, he was visibly distressed to learn from the city attorney’s office that it may take more than a year to get the measure on the ballot.

Councilwoman Joy Picus said that “it certainly appears the system is being abused” and that one problem is the pension board, which is made up of “lay people (who are) asked to make decisions they are ill-equipped to make.”

She said that most of the commissioners are more interested in investment practices than in hearing pension cases.

Composed of five mayoral appointees and representatives of the Police and Fire departments, the board guides the fund’s $1.6-billion investment portfolio and rules on every pension application.

Beefed-Up Staff

Pension Department General Manager Gary Mattingly said that he is preparing a budget that will beef up his staff to provide greater scrutiny of disability claims. He said he will propose hiring outside counsel to “get down in the gutter and fight” cases that are appealed to Superior Court.

Meanwhile, at Thursday’s Pension Board meeting, commissioners heard a controversial stress pension case involving Peter Chryss, a former Hollywood Division officer who was charged in connection with the Hollywood burglary scandal involving several police officers. The criminal charges against Chryss were later dropped. And he resigned before facing a Board of Rights trial for misconduct.

A hearing officer hired by the pension board has recommended that Chryss be given a disability pension for stress disorders. But the board decided to rehear the case to resolve what Commissioner Dellene Arthur said were “troubling” questions.