A system abused

An editorial
©St. Petersburg Times, published April 7, 1996

First of three editorials

The picture says it all: A retired Clearwater firefighter, who gets $1,305 a month in disability for an injured back, lifts a walnut dresser from outside an antique store. John Holsapple's back may have recovered, but the taxpayers who help support him never will.

Holsapple will get his pension for life, thanks to the uncommon generosity of Clearwater's police and firefighter pension plan.

His case was one of the more egregious examples of a disability pension system that is rife with abuse. An investigation by the Times found that more than a third of retired police officers and firefighters in Cleawater collect disability pensions. In Tampa and Largo, the figure is one-third, while in St. Petersburg it is 1 in 8.

Yet fewer than 1 in 100 sheriff's deputies collect disability pensions. The only difference is in the generosity of the plans -- and the political clout of the unions that help write them. The deputies are covered by a state plan that itself has been termed one of the most generous the country. The police and firefighters are covered by local plans that have gotten more and more generous over the years and are overseen by the very people who benefit from that generosity -- police and firefighters.

No wonder the vast majority of people who apply for disability pensions get them. The pension boards are sympathetic to their colleagues' claims, and the laws overseeing pensions and the bargaining agreements that enforce them are tilted in their favor.

Clearwater already has begun to reform its system, but other cities have just begun to talk about it. Meanwhile, state legislators are considering wrongheaded changes that would make disability pensions even more lucrative while costing the tax-supported plans millions of dollars.

Police officers and firefighters lay their lives on the line every day. They have tough jobs the public often takes for granted. If they are injured on the job and can no longer work, a disability pension is the least the public can provide in return.

Yet police and firefighter unions have taken advantage of the public's generosity and guilt, larding local pension plans with so many temptations that it is a wonder even more abuses have not occurred.

Eliminating fraud and reining in the overly generous aspects of these pension plans will require a concerted effort by elected officials, pension boards and the police and firefighter unions. The best place to start, though, is with the pension boards themselves. Too often, they have shown themselves to be willing accomplices to the abuse.

The city of Largo and the pension board in Tampa fought the Times in its efforts to examine pension-related records to determine how the public's money was being spent. While St. Petersburg and Clearwater opened their files with the acknowledgement that they are public records, Largo and Tampa refused. Only a court order opened Largo's files. The Times chose not to sue Tampa's board, though many details were gleaned from pension board minutes.

What do these boards have to hide? Embarrassment at the amount of money spent on questionable cases?

Deborah J. Dunn, for example, retired on disability from the Tampa Police Department seven years ago after she claimed her thumb was so badly injured during an arrest that she couldn't hold a gun. Now she's winning horse racing events, her thumb locked securely in the reins.

Then there is David Paulsen, who gets $1,370 a month in disability payments after retiring from the Largo Police Department. He was awarded his pension four months after participating in a sailboat race in stormy seas.

Unfortunately, the local pension boards have not been aggressive in rooting out alleged cases of fraud or in determining whether pensioners recover from their injuries. Tampa has recalled only one pensioner, St. Petersburg two and Clearwater and Largo none. Tampa merely surveys 20 pensioners randomly each year, relying largely on their honesty for results.

The pension boards ought to be more aggressive in rooting out fraud and returning recovered pensioners to work. The goal ought to be to help those who have been injured to return to work as soon as they can -- even if that means taking a job outside of the department -- and to assure those who can never work again that they will have some financial security.

The pension boards also should take steps to end the practice of double dipping, in which injured workers receive monthly disability payments while holding full-time public jobs. Such a practice drains the pension funds and erodes public support for an otherwise worthy cause.