Firemen getting enhanced pensions
Over 100 reported injuries while filling in for bosses at higher salary levels; Supplements will cost Boston $25m in long run
In the last six years, 102 Boston firefighters have substantially enhanced their tax-free disability pensions by claiming career-ending injuries while they were filling in for superiors at higher pay grades, according to a Globe review of city retirement and payroll records.
By making their injury claims while on temporary assignment, the firefighters were able to boost their pensions an average of $10,300 a year, to $61,737 apiece. The average lifetime increase for the 102 firefighters works out to $248,000, according to actuarial tables. The supplements, made possible by a provision in the firefighters contract, will cost the city $25 million over time.
The rash of injuries involved personnel at every level on the chain of command, including 67 firefighters, 16 lieutenants, and 11 captains, all of them filling in at the next-highest rank while their superiors were on vacation or out sick, sometimes for a single day. The list also includes eight district chiefs saying they were seriously hurt while performing desk jobs as deputy chiefs - among them, one who said he permanently injured his back while moving a file cabinet.
Boston Fire Commissioner Roderick J. Fraser Jr. said he believes injuries claimed by firefighters who perform manual work are most likely legitimate. But if they sustained the injury but didn't say it occurred until they were filling in for their superiors at higher pay, Fraser said, it would be fraud.
But for district chiefs filling in for deputy chiefs in administrative roles, Fraser said he doubts some of those injuries occurred. He cited the district chief with the file cabinet injury, as well as another district chief who asserted his injury occurred when he stepped off a curb outside Fire Department headquarters.
"An office job at headquarters is not a hazardous work environment. So these claims raise questions about the integrity of the individual and the integrity of the claim," Fraser said in an interview yesterday.
Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a business-funded watchdog group, said he finds the numbers "mind-boggling."
"This pattern raises serious questions about how legitimate many of these disability claims are . . . and indeed, whether a criminal investigation is warranted," Tyler said.
To qualify for a disability pension, an applicant must file an injury report, obtain medical documentation, win departmental approval, and gain an affirmative vote by the Boston Retirement Board. In addition, two members of a three-doctor, state-appointed panel must certify that the injury claim is authentic.
While disability pensions are tax free, regular pensions are taxable.
Boston firefighters are retiring on disability pensions - with or without the enhanced benefit - in striking numbers. From 2005 to 2007, 166 Boston firefighters retired - 123 of those on disability. Of that number, 67 received the higher pensions because their injury claims coincided with their temporary service at higher grades.
At the end of December, an additional 58 firefighters were awaiting approval of disability pensions - 30 of those claimed by men who said their injuries occurred while they were working in place of their bosses, according to an analysis of Boston Retirement Board and city payroll records.
The records also show that many of those who have claimed disabling injuries remain on injured leave status - at the superior's full pay, tax free - for two to four years before they retire. Once they take a disability retirement, they receive 72 percent of their salary at the time of injury, exempt from state and federal taxes.
Fraser said it had been taking the Fire Department 10 to 12 months on average to process disability pension applications. He said he has ordered backlogged claims to be cleared up quickly.
"This is wrong," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said of the enhanced pensions, in a City Hall interview last week. "This is public money." The mayor said the city would cooperate if federal or state criminal investigators intervene.
But Edward A. Kelly, president of the union that represents nearly 1,600 uniformed members of the Fire Department, took issue with Fraser and Menino, noting that each of the disabilities had been vetted at several levels.
"If a panel of three doctors agrees that a person has become disabled, then where's the fraud?" Kelly asked.
Assistant US Attorney Brian T. Kelly, chief of the Public Corruption Unit, said his office takes allegations of public pension fraud "quite seriously. We will review whatever is brought to our attention on this matter."
Boston's overall disability retirement rate is so high that it represents a disproportionate share of all disability pensions across Massachusetts, according to the annual reports of the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission.
The commission reports show that City of Boston employees are getting 16.3 percent of Massachusetts disability retirements, up from 10.7 percent in 2002. City employees make up 6.8 percent of employees covered by the system.
Fire departments in other comparable cities have substantially lower disability retirement rates than Boston. In Baltimore, according to city officials, 22 percent of firefighters retire on disability. In Milwaukee, the rate is 15 percent, and it's 20 percent in Raleigh.
The contract provision allowing firefighters to file for retirements at higher grades stems from contract language the city and union agreed to in 2000. Designed to streamline assignments, the contract agreement stipulated that when a superior officer was out ill or on vacation, the most senior person in years of service would fill in, at the higher grade. Before that, the contract required that the person next in line for promotion would fill in.
But as soon as seniority on the job became the prerequisite, the number of retirements at the higher grade began, with five in 2001, and climbing to 28 in 2006.
Menino, in an interview last week, said City Hall officials first learned of the phenomenon in early 2006 when they were preparing for another round of contract negotiations. Citing the abuses, Menino said, the city asked the union to forgo the provision. Contract negotiations, he said, broke down when the union insisted that it would give in only if the city's offer of a 14 percent pay raise were increased to 21 percent. "They want to be paid for stopping an abuse of the system. That's wrong," Menino said.
Kelly denied the union had demanded such an increase, though he declined to say what give-back the union was seeking.
Firefighters have been working without a new contract since 2006, and talks broke down last year over this dispute. Further complicating the negotiations is the city's insistence on drug and alcohol testing in the wake of the August deaths of two firefighters in a West Roxbury blaze. The autopsies of the two men showed one was intoxicated and the second had traces of cocaine in his system.
Fraser, a former US Navy officer who was appointed as commissioner by Menino a year ago, said he is "disgusted" by the higher-grade disabilities, especially when they have been taken advantage of by senior officers.
"If you're a leader, guys are going to follow you. It is where you take them that matters," Fraser said. "Right now, they are being taken down an unethical and immoral path by these chiefs." Fraser acknowledged his comments would cause him trouble in the department, but said, "I may have to barricade myself in my office. But the truth shall set you free."
In telephone interviews yesterday, several of the retirees refused to discuss how they became injured. Not only are their medical records deemed private by state and local pension officials, but even the reason for their disability is kept confidential in most cases.
But one, retired district chief John J. Ellard, whose disability pension was just approved on Dec. 18, said he had a bad back, two knee surgeries, and a hip replacement that were job-related. One night, he said, he was filling in for a deputy chief when there was a fire at the aquarium.
The scene, he said, was hectic, he wasn't paying attention, and he tripped and fell down. His tax-free pension is $89,532 at the deputy's rate, nearly $12,000 more than he would have gotten otherwise.
As for applying while at the higher grade, Ellard said: Every individual should have the opportunity to apply for disability at a higher grade, and to go through the disability and retirement board process to see if it's legitimate."
Globe correspondent Nikki Gloudeman and Globe staff reporter Matt Carroll contributed to this report. Walter Robinson's e-mail address is wrobinson@globe.com. Confidential messages can be left at 617-929-3334. 