Worker Comp Files Seized in Compton

The school district has canceled its contract with a company hired last year to administer its Workers’ Compensation plan and ordered school police to remove the district’s files from the firm’s office.

Compton Unified School District officials would not answer questions about the action or about the district’s relationship with the firm, Golden State Administrators of Compton.

Financial records in the office of the Los Angeles County superintendent of schools show that the district’s costs for Workers’ Compensation jumped nearly 50% after it hired Golden State in July, 1989.

For the 1989-90 school year, the district paid $4.3 million for administration, doctor bills and salaries of employees injured on the job. The year before, when another firm, Bierly and Associates of Pasadena, administered the district’s claims, the cost was only $2.8 million.

At its meeting June 26, the district board of trustees voted to renew Golden State’s contract for six more months.

Golden State is what is known as a third-party administrator. Employers--public and private--are allowed to hire such firms to handle their Workers’ Compensation programs. The administrator is paid a fee for processing and paying claims and is given funds with which to pay the doctors and employees’ salaries.

Compton paid Golden State a fee of about $19,500 a month.