Tighter Criteria for Police Stress Pensions Urged

The Los Angeles County Grand Jury has endorsed a series of proposals aimed at curtailing the rising number of Los Angeles police officers seeking early retirement for stress disabilities.

The tax-free lifetime pensions awarded to officers for stress-related ailments “constitute a fiscal problem to the city far out of proportion to any other municipal or county jurisdiction in the state of California,” the grand jury concluded in a report released Tuesday.

The panel estimated that pension costs for police officers and firefighters will total more than $2.8 billion over the next 20 years if present trends continue.

As the pension system exists, the report says, police officers win lucrative benefits with “minimal . . . challenge,” because city personnel have taken a “benevolent approach” in evaluating an officer’s claim.

Restructuring Recommended

Reacting to reports of officers abusing the pension system, the grand jury recommended both restructuring the system to tighten the claims evaluation process and amending the City Charter to reduce pension benefits in some cases.

Although praising key city staff for pushing for pension reform in the past, the grand jury said that the staffers have “for the most part been stymied by a lack of legislative action, both in Sacramento and in the city.”

The panel threw its support behind a proposal favored by Mayor Tom Bradley and key city administrators to write a charter amendment that would allow the Board of Pension Commissioners to lower an officer’s minimum pension award to 10% of his salary, instead of the current 50% mandatory minimum.

The grand jury, which acts as an independent watchdog committee investigating local management practices, hired private auditors to review the pension process after a series of articles in The Times detailed a dramatic rise in stress-related disability pensions in the Police Department.

During the last five years, 175 police officers have won tax-free, lifetime pensions for disabilities in which stress was a primary factor. The number accounted for almost half the disability pensions granted to police and firefighters during the period, according to city Department of Pensions statistics.

The Times found that an increasing number of officers are winning stress pensions. Often officers apply for such pensions after they have reached dead-ends in their careers, have been the subject of disciplinary action or have had criminal charges filed against them.

Found to be incapable of performing even light-duty police desk work, these officers are then free to obtain other jobs and still collect their pension checks.

Vocational Rehabilitation

The grand jury suggested that the city set up a vocational rehabilitation program to encourage officers suffering from stress and other disabilities to transfer to civilian jobs within the city, without incurring a financial penalty.

This was one of about a dozen “administrative, procedural and program reorganization actions” suggested in the report to revamp the pension claims process and reduce city expense.

Key among them was a recommendation that the city aggressively investigate claims, rather than simply rely upon the reports of doctors, who often “have little background information about the pension claimant, other than his or her word.”

Under the current system, “essentially ‘his or her word’ is the major part of the evidence that goes into the transcript of the pension hearings,” the grand jury said.

The panel recommended restructuring the system “so that under certain circumstances it becomes an adversarial process,” with standard rules of evidence in force and the city attorney’s office taking an aggressive role.

Currently, pension hearings are often quick and casual. The officer seeking disability usually has an attorney who forcefully argues his case to the pension commissioners, while the city attorney’s representative often does not offer a single word to refute the applicant’s claim.

More Complete Record

The grand jury urged the board, when denying claims, to protect itself from possible lawsuits by establishing a more complete record of the case in the event of an appeal.

In approving a claim, the panel recommended that the board specify that the pensioner’s condition will be reviewed every two years for possible modification of benefits.

The grand jury said the “front line of defense” in pension cases is usually at the city worker’s compensation level, because a pension applicant’s first step is usually to file a worker’s compensation claim. Resolution of the claim can bind the pension board, the panel said.

The grand jury said the city’s worker’s compensation program is “overloaded, understaffed and fiscally stretched.”

Straightening out the program and coordinating it with the city pension process is crucial, the report said.