Hahn Withdraws Application for Disability Benefits

Declining comment for one of the few times after more than four decades as a public official in Los Angeles County, retired supervisor Kenneth Hahn issued a terse announcement Tuesday that he has withdrawn his application for disability pension benefits.

The announcement came less than a week after the county Employees Retirement Assn. board turned down Hahn’s request for the benefits, which would have allowed him to avoid taxes on half of his annual pension of $129,371 and would have permitted his wife, Ramona, to receive his full pension after his death.

“He has nothing to say about it,” Ramona Hahn said Tuesday from the family home. “He’s kind of hurt.”

Blaming his heart trouble and the stroke that left him in a wheelchair on the long hours and stress from his years on the board, Hahn had asked for a service-related disability pension.

“It was a full-time, 24-hour job, seven days a week,” Hahn said Monday in a published interview. “When I got up in the morning I was working, when I went to bed at night I was working. . . . All of that over the years took its toll.”

George Landgraf, a retirement specialist with the association, said the board ruled July 7 that Hahn, who stepped down in December, was entitled to a disability retirement, but that the disability was not service-related.

Because of his age and his years of service, Hahn already is receiving the maximum pension, so the disability clause will add nothing to the amount he receives, Landgraf said. Had the disability been service-related, he would have gotten the tax break and benefits for his wife.

Hahn could have appealed the ruling, but with his announcement on Tuesday, it appears that the issue is closed.