COUNTY RESISTS WIDER BENEFITS.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Faced with the potential collapse of the health care system and other budget problems, Los Angeles County supervisors warned on Tuesday that state legislators have proposed increases in workers' compensation and pensions for public employees that would cost taxpayers millions.

The supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to direct their Sacramento lobbyists to oppose seven bills that would allow more public employees to obtain higher pensions and workers' compensation benefits.

``This is a continuing rip-off of the California taxpayer,'' said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. ``It is well known that California has some of the most generous public employees pensions in the nation, and the abuses such as these have gotten way out of control.

``We would support the Board of Supervisors' opposition to expansion of these benefits.''

Senate Bill 1018, SB 1215 and Assembly Bill 507 would expand the most lucrative benefits category - the one for sheriff's deputies and firefighters who risk life and limb - to also cover prosecutors, public defenders, park police, park rangers, jail custody assistants and safety police.

Under SB 1176, another bill relating to workers' compensation, higher benefits would apply to safety police, district attorney investigators and jail custodial officers who get cancer by granting them a presumption that the disease was caused by their job.

Another bill, AB 663, would provide county lifeguards with a similar presumption for cancer and for leukemia, hernia, heart trouble, pneumonia, tuberculosis and meningitis.

Still another bill, SB 424, would create a job-related presumption for law enforcement personnel who wear duty belts, which weigh 30 to 35 pounds, and who develop lower back injuries.

``These bills would open up a Pandora's box,'' Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said.

The county already pays $200 million a year in workers' compensation benefits and is looking at ways to cut services in the health care system, fearful that failure to make cuts will leave the county with a $900 million deficit in 2005 after federal bailout funds expire.

A county report says county workers have an incentive for seeking a service-connected disability retirement because current rules give them 100 percent of their retirement pay, half tax-free.

The county pays more than $250 million a year in contributions to pension plans, and officials expect that figure to rise as a result of recent legislation allowing more service-connected disability retirements. County Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said further increases in workers' compensation and pensions costs would force departments to cut services.

``We consider this very serious,'' Janssen said. ``There is real potential exposure here to county revenues that we need to oppose.''

In the past couple of years, lawmakers have passed laws that give law enforcement personnel, firefighters and other public safety personnel higher pensions based on presumptions for cancer and blood-borne illnesses.

Under these laws, safety personnel can claim full disability benefits for heart problems, cancer and blood-borne illnesses without proving a job-related connection.

A similar law allowed the late Sheriff Sherman Block's widow to win a $232,908-plus annual pension, the highest in the nation. Block, who had survived two bouts with cancer and was undergoing weekly kidney dialysis treatment, died in October 1998 after falling in the bathtub. The county pension board ruled his death was ``service connected.''

A report late last year found that the county retirement board granted disability pensions over the past three years at a higher rate than four other counties surveyed in the state. The report found an average of 54 percent of deputies and 64 percent of county firefighters - topping out at 75 percent in 1997-98 - receive the more lucrative disability retirements.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said he has seen a constant effort on the part of the Legislature to usurp local government's authority over workers' compensation and pension costs.

``To presume that a county or city employee who gets cancer by definition has to have gotten cancer because of his job is ludicrous,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``And if there is a cause and effect, they are entitled to workers' compensation under the old laws.''

Sacramento lawmakers said the county supervisors should spend a week in the shoes of safety personnel.

``Why don't you tell the supervisors to spend a week wearing those belts and then see how they feel about the bill,'' said state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco. ``Those belts weigh 30 to 35 pounds.''

Burton is sponsoring SB 424, which would create a job-related presumption for workers' compensation for law enforcement personnel who have been required to wear a duty belt and develop lower back injuries.

Tim Yaryan, a legislative advocate for the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, said ALADS supports the bill because it's hard for a deputy to show that one incident, rather than long-term use of the belt, caused the injury.

``I think the county is overstating their case,'' Yaryan said. ``This is not going to bankrupt the county. When you get hepatitis C or develop a back injury working for Los Angeles County, the county should be responsible for their employees.''

Assemblywoman Sally Havice, D-Bellflower, said she authored AB 507 at the request of the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association because the 1,200 jail custody assistants do much of the same work as sheriff's deputies but don't receive the same protections.

The bill would offer custody assistants the same benefits as other safety personnel. To put more deputies on the street, the sheriff is considering hiring 1,000 more custody assistants, she said.

``The county seems to be taking an opposition position to anything that may cost a few bucks more,'' Havice said. ``This is a terrible inequity. The custody assistants are the only employees of any county who are un- uniformed and involved in direct contact with inmates.''

Other bills also are on the county's radar screen. Assemblyman Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, said he's shocked by the county supervisors' opposition to his bill, AB 196, which would eliminate the requirement that public safety workers, including firefighters and law enforcement officers, demonstrate on-the-job exposure to blood or blood products in order to qualify for service-connected disability retirement benefits for blood-borne disease.

``Talk about a red herring out there being thrown to oppose this bill,'' Correa said. ``Right now, if you come down with a blood-borne illness, you have to prove you got it in the line of duty. That's almost impossible.

``You are talking about peace officers and firefighters who come down with some very serious diseases. They protect us and our communities. We've got to turn around and protect them.''

In the past few years, animal control workers, deputy district attorneys and social workers have sought status as safety employees, thus qualifying them for the more lucrative pensions and service-connected disability pensions.

``The current Legislature has been very supportive of benefit improvements so I think there is a good likelihood that many of these bills will get enacted,'' said Marsha Richter, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association.

``Under the Wilson administration, you had eight years where there were no benefit improvements. You could say there is a lot of pent-up demand. Last year, there was a lot of pension legislation enacted. This year, there is all this stuff out there.''

According to LACERA's 2000 statistics, general county employees received an average monthly pension benefit in the range of $739 to $3,377 depending on their years of service, while public safety employees received an average of from $2,279 to $6,102 based on years of service.

For public safety employees who receive service-connected disability pensions, those amounts can be increased up to 100 percent of their final salary.

In comparison, general employees for the city of Los Angeles received in 2000 an average monthly benefit ranging from $707 to $3,869. The average police officer and firefighter monthly benefit was $3,069.