Montgomery County Council members missed a perfect opportunity in 2008 to correct widespread abuse of the county’s employee disability system after Inspector General Thomas Dagley reported that the number of disability claims granted in the county was far above those in neighboring jurisdictions. Three of every five Montgomery police officers who retired between 2004 and 2008 were awarded lifetime disability pensions, Dagley found, even though some had already moved on to other law enforcement jobs. But council members did nothing, so the abuse continued.
On Wednesday, The Examiner’s Brian Hughes reported on another suspicious surge of disability claims, this time by county firefighters. Between March and June of this year, 25 members of the Fire and Rescue Service applied for disability benefits. Only seven from the service were found eligible for disability in 2009. Assistant Fire Chief Scott Graham admitted that department employees who could no longer meet the physical demands of the job were told to either “retire or apply for disability” — claiming that paying lifetime benefits to out-of-shape firefighters was part of a “cost-saving plan.”
In addition, 18 of 44 retiring Montgomery police employees were awarded disability pensions for the fiscal year that ended June 30, some for minor injuries suffered years ago. The list includes Jacqueline Davey, a 39-year-old former police sergeant who has been charged with billing the county more than $10,000 for hours she did not work. But thanks to her tax-paid pension, Davey is now collecting 67 percent of her previous salary, tax-free. Chief Administrative Officer Timothy Firestine signed off on Davey’s disability claim two years after his boss, County Executive Ike Leggett, promised to fix the system. More recently one applicant of 129 disability cases recently re-evaluated by Leggett’s office was declared ineligible. Some fix.
That police officers and firefighters are sometimes seriously injured on the job is not in dispute, nor is the county’s responsibility to provide for those who are truly disabled in the line of duty. But Montgomery’s disability program has morphed from a safety net to another cushy retirement package for county employees that taxpayers can no longer afford.
Despite being warned two years ago, the council failed to pass a bill introduced by Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg, and Duchy Trachtenberg, D-at large, that would have required, among other needed reforms, an independent review of all disability claims. This time, voters should demand that council members do their job and make sure that milking the disability system is no longer tolerated.
