Montgomery County is trying to recover more than $300,000 in excess pension payments to three employees who retired with disabilities and were later rehired by the county. Three former public safety employees who retired with service-related disabilities were rehired in part-time positions with other parts of the county and were receiving their full, tax-exempt disability pension payments simultaneously with their salaries, according to county spokeswoman Donna Bigler. She would not release the employees’ names because of privacy laws.
The payments violate
county law, which stipulates that when retired employees paid disability pensions get new jobs with the county government or as police officers, their pensions must be reduced by the amount of their new salary.
The county has filed an insurance claim for the lost pension money, which Bigler said amounts to about $319,000, and sent letters to two of the three employees warning them that their pensions will be reduced, effective Sept. 1. The employees are not being asked to reimburse the county for lost funds or being penalized other than their reduced salaries.
One of the two employees worked less than 20 hours a week for $21.56 an hour, averaging about $20,000 a year for more than 15 years. Though Bigler could not reveal his pension because of privacy laws, it should have been about two-thirds of his full-time salary at the time of his retirement in the mid-1990s, which was $54,276. That means he may have been earning as much as $56,000 a year between his 20 hours a week and his pension.
That employee resigned shortly after being told his pension would be reduced.
Another employee was working an average of
a couple hours a week at $13.78 an hour, earning $1,500 a year since 2008. His full-time salary when he retired in the early 1990s was $36,039, meaning he may be making as much as $25,500 a year.
The third employee works in the county State’s Attorney’s Office. Though he is paid through the county payroll system, he is not technically a “county employee” because the county does not oversee payroll decisions in that office, Bigler said. His pension will not be reduced.
Human Resources employees discovered the problem in June while combining county retirement records with the payroll system. Before that, the two systems were separate, allowing extra pension payments to slip through the cracks.
Disability payments in the county have come under increased scrutiny, particularly after a 2008 inspector general’s report found that in fiscal 2008 the county spent $32 million on disability pension payments to 837 former employees.
In June, the County Council approved a multitiered disability pension system that would base the amount of the pension on the severity of his disability.
According to Bigler, 255 employees have retired with disabilities in the last 10 years.
