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Golf, a job and disability pay
Times photo -- JAMES LUCAS, Tampa police: With disability pension benefits and salary, he now makes $47,600 a year
By KATHERINE SHAVER TAMPA When Officer James Lucas slipped and fell while investigating a burglary in 1989, he hurt his back so badly, he said, he was left totally and permanently disabled. mnTampa's pension board disagreed with Lucas and two doctors. Instead it believed a third doctor who found no medical proof of Lucas' injury. Lucas took his case to court and convinced a judge he deserved to retire due to his "tremendous back pain" and "restriction of physical activity." Today, Lucas is back at work at the Tampa Police Department -- and still collecting his $28,000-a-year disability pension. He's also back on the police golf circuit. Though Lucas says he still takes pain pills, a bad back didn't stop him from winning second place in last year's local Police Benevolent Association tournament. Nor did it keep him from a second-place finish in the 1994 state Police Olympics. With his new desk job and his tax-free disability pension, Lucas now makes $47,600 a year. That's $10,000 more than he made as a street officer. How can someone collect a city pension for being totally disabled and, at the same time, earn a city salary for continuing to work? Easily. Critics call it "double dipping." It's forbidden in several Florida cities because of the financial drain it can put on a city's pension fund. With Tampa police, however, it's not only allowed. It's encouraged. "If that was the rule here at the time, I wouldn't have come back," said Lucas, 51. "I would have found a job somewhere else. But after 211/2 years (as a police officer), I don't feel I'm double dipping. I did my time." Tampa police Sgt. John Swope and other trustees of the city's firefighters and police pension fund say officers hurt in the line of duty should be allowed to work second, less physically demanding jobs in the police department.
SWOPE: Trustee says double-dippers are perceived to be "taking advantage of the system." Still, Swope said, "The perception is they're taking advantage of the system." In private business, injured employees find their benefits reduced, and often cut off, when they get other jobs. Insurance companies reason that they are physically able to work and no longer in need of financial support. Faced with the mounting costs of disabilities, the state of Florida and cities including St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Jacksonville have curbed expenses by forbidding paid retirements for injured employees who can do other state or city jobs. "I think the whole philosophy is to reduce the probability of disabilities by not making it so attractive," said Mike Laursen, Clearwater's human resources director. In Tampa, though, 11 former police officers are each collecting a city disability pension and a city salary. They fall under a system that has evolved, albeit via a historical fluke, into one of the most liberal in the state. Those who support double dipping cite the case of Dennis Duggan, who gave up hopes of becoming a narcotics detective seven years ago after a Jeep hit his police motorcycle. Duggan's lower left leg was amputated. Though he got a disability pension, he said it wouldn't have been enough to pay off his house and save for his son's college education. So he returned to work at the Tampa Police Department. "That's what I knew," Duggan said. "It was home." Duggan now collects $27,000 a year tax-free from his disability pension and $24,800 a year for running errands and overseeing the maintenance of the narcotics detectives' cars. Total: $51,800, or almost $20,000 more than he made as an officer. And he collected another $93,600 in workers' compensation benefits. Still, "it's a humbling experience," said Duggan, 38. "Before I felt like I was going up the ladder. Then you're holding the ladder for people who climb by you. . . . If I go to any other police department, it's not double dipping. Why should I be penalized because I got hurt on the job?" Like Duggan, Tampa police who can't perform full street-patrol duties -- such as wrestling an unruly suspect or sitting in a police car on a 12-hour shift -- are considered disabled. It doesn't matter if an officer injures his trigger finger but is capable of doing other police work, such as gathering evidence or interviewing victims. The officer is fired after a doctor determines he can never return to street patrol. The officer then can apply for a disability pension that could pay him 65 percent of his salary, tax-free, for the rest of his life. He can also apply for a police desk job. City officials say double dipping is good business. It might sound cruel to fire injured officers, but it's too expensive and unfair to the public to keep highly paid police off the street and behind desks, said Kirby Rainsberger, the Police Department's attorney. In rehiring the officer for a civilian job, such as supervising dispatchers or giving lie-detector tests, the city pays him perhaps half the salary of a veteran patrol officer. The city then turns around and hires a rookie at a cheaper salary to fill the veteran officer's street slot. Rainsberger insists the decisions have more to do with manpower than money. "We welcome police officers (on disability pensions) with open arms" for civilian jobs, Rainsberger said. "They have experience and training. We know their employment history. I think we've taken remarkable advantage of those people whenever we can." Whatever the motivation, few object to the appealing results. The Police Department keeps a full force of healthy officers on the street. The city saves money on salaries. With a tax-free pension and an additional paycheck, the injured officer now earns more than ever. Everyone benefits -- except the pension fund, which bears a new financial liability of up to $1.2-million for each retired officer. "What you have to be careful with," said Swope, the police sergeant and pension board trustee, "is the city using that as a way to cut costs." Take the case of Mildred Grant. She collects a $30,800-a-year disability pension for an injury to her right knee that she suffered in a police training class. After she was injured, but before she was fired, Grant was temporarily assigned to light duty taking assault reports by phone. After getting her disability pension, Grant returned to the assaults desk. But the city now pays her $21,650 a year, instead of her $44,500 officer's salary. Grant, 41, did not respond to phone calls or a certified letter seeking comment. The police, firefighters and city officials who drafted Tampa's pension contract 26 years ago didn't intend for anyone to collect both a disability pension and city salary, according to tape recordings of their meetings. To be sure, a consultant warned that the new contract was "opening the door" to escalating disability costs by making the definition of disability so liberal. To keep costs down, the consultant said, trustees might want to reduce disability benefits for people who could take other city jobs. The trustees, however, dismissed the warning and left out a double-dipping prohibition. One trustee called the issue "irrelevant" because it already was forbidden by city rules, according to the tape recordings of the 1969 meetings. But seven years later, the issue resurfaced. Rules changed. History was forgotten. A retired firefighter who returned to work for the city hired a lawyer to argue that the pension board owed him benefits withheld after he took his new city job. Then former police Chief Robert Smith, who had taken a regular retirement after 20 years, was appointed the city's public safety administrator in 1985. This time lawyers weren't necessary. The city simply changed its rules to let Smith and other retired police and firefighters take other city jobs. Meanwhile, the pension contract still had no ban on paying retirement benefits to those earning a second city income. Smith's hiring sparked controversy -- and drew police and firefighters' attention. "That opened the door," said Carlos Llerandi, a Tampa fire inspector and pension board trustee. "People said, 'If he (Smith) can do it, so can I.' " Word spread -- and for good reason. In addition to collecting 66 percent of his salary from workers' compensation for a limited period, an employee could get 65 percent of his salary from his disability pension. The result: A disabled employee could make more than his original salary, tax-free, without working. Or he could return to another city job for a third source of income. Steve Barbas, a Tampa lawyer and part-time assistant city attorney, said he grew frustrated as the number of disability cases soared. "There was absolutely no incentive to go back to work and every incentive to bow out of work," he said. "...That didn't make any sense. They weren't only double dipping, they were triple dipping."
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