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Contributors
K. Lloyd Billingsley - Contributor
[Courtesty of Pacific Research
Institute]
K. Lloyd
Billingsley is Editorial Director for the Pacific
Research Institute and has been widely published on topics
including on popular culture, defense policy, education reform,
and many other current policy issues. [go to Billingsley index]
 When
the Chips are Down
Compassionate Sacramento……
[K. Lloyd Billingsley] 9/17/04
According
to an investigation by the Sacramento Bee, of the 65 high-ranking
CHP officers who have retired since 2000, 55 pursued
workers’ compensation settlements during the two years
before they retired. The claimed injuries, “chief’s
disease” as it is known within the force, are the rule
rather than the exception. They lead to settlements and medical
pensions far beyond the already lucrative benefits of the CHP,
where officers can retire at age 50 with 90 percent of their
pay.
For example, Deputy Commissioner Ed Gomez, a 33-year CHP veteran,
claimed to be disabled by workplace stress and physical ailments.
In 2000, the 57-year-old was awarded a $39,000 settlement, medical
care for life for his injuries, and a state industrial disability
pension of $106,968 a year, half of it free of taxes. Then two
years later the federal government hired Gomez for the high-stress
job of directing security at San Francisco airport.
CHP Deputy Chief Kevin
Mince sought a workers’ compensation
settlement as a result of stress from dealing with his supervisor.
He was found to be 23-percent disabled as a result of headaches,
shingles, chest pains, and “injuries to his psyche.” He
took an industrial disability retirement of $109,259, half of
it exempt from taxes. He also moved to Hawaii where he functions
well enough to teach scuba diving.
The Bee's investigation also noted that Larry Hollingsworth,
a CHP captain, was found to be 61-percent disabled from knee
injuries, ulcers, high blood pressure, and hearing loss. He took
a medical pension from the CHP but is still apparently sound
enough to become assistant sheriff of Yolo County.
CHP boss D.O. “Spike” Helmick,
who retires this week, has decried this sort of thing and has
opposed increased
safety pensions for other state employees. But it turns out that
Helmick has opted to have a go himself. In the past three years,
according to the Bee's investigation, Helmick made five injury
claims, including one for a fall from his office chair in 2000.
Perhaps the design was faulty, or maybe it was set too high.
The doctor would know.
“The system is so lucrative,” the suddenly accident-prone
Helmick told reporters in June, “I'm afraid people are
going to take advantage even if they're 100 percent ethical.”
Some legislators have
called for policing the police, whose reputation has been besmirched
by the retirement scam. The real
problem is the lucrative system, which still needs to be fixed.
Workers’ compensation was created to help those legitimately
injured on the job, not to bankroll luxury retirement on dubious
grounds.
Assistant CHP chief Denise Daeley, 42, was hurt in a private
car returning from a weekend in Las Vegas. The trip was not work
authorized but she claimed to have been recruiting for the force
in Las Vegas. Daeley got an annual $57,396, half her salary,
tax free, and decamped for Hawaii.
California’s government establishment finds it fatuously
easy to give away other people’s money, the current definition
of “compassion.” The governor needs to weigh in on “chief’s
disease.” And Californians need to monitor the growing
disparities between those employed by the state and those who
aren’t. CRO
copyright
2004 Pacific Research Institute
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