Shutting Out the Public

Earlier this year, Times staff writers Claire Spiegel and Robert Welkos detailed the shocking and scandalous abuse of the Los Angeles police pension system in which officers receive disability pensions based on flimsy claims of stress-induced disorders. The number of such pensions has soared in recent years as more and more police have boarded the gravy train. The public is footing the bill while these supposedly disabled officers receive hefty pensions and embark on new careers.

So what has been the response of the Police Pension Board? You’d think that disclosure of the abuses in the system would cause the board to tighten the rules. Think again. Now that the public has discovered that the Pension Board hardly ever turns anyone down, the board has taken steps to ensure that the public can no longer see what’s going on. It has effectively closed controversial pension hearings to public scrutiny--in violation of state law.

Pension hearings used to be held before the board at open public meetings. Since the disclosures of the pension scam, the board has now decided to keep out the messengers. It has begun assigning controversial (that is, stress-related) pensions to hearing examiners, who have barred the public and the press on the ground that confidential medical records will be discussed.

If the hearings were held before the full board, there would be no question that the state’s open-meetings law applies to them. The hearing examiners are acting in lieu of the full board, and the law applies just as much. In essence, police officers seeking disability pensions are asking the city--the taxpayers--to support them for life. It is not unreasonable for taxpayers to want to know the basis for granting a disability pension. The intent of state law is to have all actions taken openly. That is good public policy. It gives the public the ability to see what’s being done. It enabled the Times reporters to document the laxity with which stress-disability pensions are being dispensed.

Come, come, ladies and gentlemen, let’s have those pension hearings conducted in the open. The sad history of stress-disability pensions shows that there should be more public oversight, not less.