An independent arbitrator ruled last week that even if injured former cops are convicted of on-the-job crimes and sentenced to jail, Montgomery County must keep paying them disability retirement benefits after they are released. This ruling is absurd, but the County Council has already solved the problem, and its solution should be allowed to take effect this summer.
The council passed a law last June disqualifying employees from receiving such benefits if they were terminated for misconduct. That law goes into effect on July 1. Councilman Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg, who cosponsored the bill with former at-large member Duchy Trachtenberg, D, told The Washington Examiner that since the council was not a party to the arbitration, it is not bound by the ruling.
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Council members got it right the first time. They should not let this union-friendly arbitration ruling goad them into second-guessing themselves now. As Senior Legislative Attorney Robert Drummer noted in his report to the council at the time, “It makes little sense to pay an employee for future lost earnings that the employee would not have received due to a disciplinary termination for misconduct on the job.”
The legislation was passed in response to an inspector general report detailing widespread abuse of the disability system, including four former police officers who collected $30,000 each in tax-exempt disability pensions after being jailed for crimes. A former fire lieutenant who sexually assaulted a female co-worker was also cashing retirement disability checks. Council members did the right thing by cutting such miscreants off.
The new law also establishes a two-tier disability system for police officers, similar to the one used for firefighters for over a decade, which draws an important distinction between partial and complete disability. Councilman Andrews pointed out that the law provides 52.5 percent of salary to police officers retiring on partial disability, and 70 percent for those on full disability.
The arbitrator’s ruling, by contrast, would have given 60 percent for partial disability and 67 percent for full disability — that is, more money for bum knees and less for paralysis. Given that 90 percent of the disability claims are for partial disability, this would actually cost more, do less for those most in need, and blur the distinction between on-the-job injuries that allow officers to continue working and those that end a career. Council members should stand their ground.
