EDITORIAL INJURED POLICY WORKERS' COMP REFORMS ONLY HALF-COMPLETED.

CALIFORNIA Republicans want to delay the onset of workers' compensation benefit increases scheduled to take effect in 2003. Given the state's grim budget situation, it's not a bad idea. But there are greater problems in California's workers' comp system that must be addressed.

As currently configured, the system offers some of the lowest benefits to workers at some of the highest costs to employers, serving neither well.

The inadequacy of benefits for injured workers prompted Democratic lawmakers to raise the benefits during the last session, but without doing much about the problem of rising costs to employers. Sooner or later, though, that approach boomerangs, because businesses close or move out of state.

California's economy can't afford to have a system that sticks employers with overly high costs, any more than it should have a system that shorts injured workers.

It should be in both parties' interests to ensure that the state has a fair, efficient workers' compensation system. What's needed is a complete solution, something lawmakers have so far failed to provide.