It’s Serious

The apparent humor with which some of the people in charge of police pensions view their responsibilities does not fill us with confidence that they are serious about ending phony disability pensions based on claims of stress. In the last five years almost half the tax-free, lifetime disability pensions awarded to police officers cited stress as a primary factor, and some went to officers who had been the subject of disciplinary action or criminal charges. In some cases the stress pensioners were healthy enough to get other jobs, and continued to collect their pensions at the same time. This flagrant abuse of the system was brought to light in a series of articles in The Times last week. Now is the time to begin making changes, before the revelations fade from public attention and the system continues undisturbed in its comfortable, well-trod and larcenous path.

Last year the Board of Pension Commissioners approved 80% of the stress claims that came before them, indicating either that most claims have merit or that the commissioners are not paying enough attention to their work--the more likely explanation. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley thinks so, and he urged the commissioners last week to “be tougher” with claimants. He also urged an amendment to the city Charter to put a halt to the scheme by removing the financial incentive to the filing of specious claims.

At present, a pension cannot be less than 50% of an officer’s salary. The mayor, the city administrative officer and several City Council members would like to change the Charter to allow for pensions as low as 10% of salary. This change should be put before the voters and enacted as soon as possible. Unfortunately, state law requires collective bargaining before a change can be adopted in employment conditions for public workers, so it may take a while before a Charter amendment can be placed on the ballot. City officials should move expeditiously to cut through the red tape and get this before the voters. The City Council should get up the political nerve to fight the police union in the public interest.

This is very serious business, but apparently not to Pension Commissioner Bert Cohen, who has taken to snoozing at pension hearings and is so proud of it that he brought a sleeping bag to the commission’s regular weekly meeting last week. If Cohen could force himself to stay awake, he might be in a better position to watch the public money that he has been entrusted to watch. If he can’t stay awake, he should step aside for someone who can.

The problem with stress pensions has been identified, and the solution is known. Failure to implement it would be a scandalous dereliction of duty.