Hello! Anybody in There?

In Los Angeles city bureaucracy, as in deep space, no one can hear you scream. At least that’s the impression one might get from the city’s torpid response to problems in its badly flawed workers’ compensation system.

As far back as 1989, auditors in the city controller’s office as well as private consultants were warning that bureaucrats in the city’s Workers’ Compensation Division needed to correct systemic problems that were inviting fraud, pushing up injury caseloads and costing millions in scarce dollars to pay off questionable claims. Alas, five years later it looks as if things haven’t changed much. For its part, the bureaucracy fiercely has resisted reform.

According to a city task force, Los Angeles municipal employees file nearly twice the number of injury claims filed by other government employees and payments per worker average $2,169, more than 2 1/2 times the national average.

One employee here is under investigation on suspicion of defrauding the system of nearly $1 million. That’s an outrage, especially in a city so deeply hurting for money.

It’s not as if changes haven’t been proposed before; a number have come from Controller Rick Tuttle’s office and elsewhere.

We wish every success to Faye Washington, the new head of the Personnel Department, as she attempts to institute the recommended changes. To help her, the City Council should approve a proposal to hire an outside firm to reduce the city’s 42,000-case backlog--and perhaps even to help the city foresee any problems that may lurk beneath the surface.