Disability boondoggle cries for review [News-Times]

News Times Editorial
It’s small wonder that Connecticut is grappling with monumental budget issues when rudimentary accounting for disability payments to retirees is out of control.

Connecticut’s state auditors earlier this month reported that millions of dollars in disability retirement benefits may have been paid to state workers no longer entitled to collect such payments.

Adding insult to injury, it took a whistleblower to bring attention to the boondoggle and it seems it’s going to take collective bargaining between the state and its employee unions to help straighten out the mess.

We couldn’t agree more with Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, a Republican from North Haven, who said, “How can we expect the public to take on more burdens when the state fails to control internal waste and watch its own spending closely?”

No question there are lots of moving parts in this problem: For one thing, auditors said the Connecticut State Employees Retirement System essentially ignored the recommendations of the state Medical Examining Board that retirees on disability go no more than 24 months without a review. That, the auditors said, added up to about 500 retirees who went beyond 24 months, about 160 who went more than four years without review, and two who went more than eight years.

State Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo said he raised a flag on this issue two years ago and has been working to get it resolved.

One of the poster children for the problem is an unidentified retired state employee whose salary was $47,285 at the time of retirement in 2013 and who subsequently reported $183,446 in income — on top of $33,480 in disability payments. Unable to do a state job, but amazingly — and lucratively — fit for some other type of work.

In their report to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, auditors John C. Geragosian and Robert M. Ward also noted that many retirees on disability failed to fill out annual written surveys of their status.