May 27, 2008
The Injury Lottery
The Projo headline should have been "Murder case could threaten ex-officers' pensions," because it shouldn't take the manifest ability of killing another human being to correct this clear fleecing of the public:
Gianquitti has been collecting an accidental disability pension since 1993, retiring at 24 after six months as a patrolman for the Providence Police Department. His disability pension is two-thirds his salary, tax-free, plus health care benefits for him and his family. ...While Gianquitti’s pension received cost-of-living adjustments, the city never checked on him to find out if he was, indeed, still disabled, Cunha said.
The hand-wringing over whether the pension requirement of "honorable service" applies to crimes committed after retirement is sickening: Anybody still living on the municipality's deal for police officers ought to be held to the same standard. And taking advantage of an early injury for a lifelong vacation ought to be considered dishonorable on its face.
Physical disability has got to be just about the biggest scam around. It was made to order for the all the lazy moochers out there who know how to play the system. Why is any person considered totally, permanently physically disabled because they allegedly can’t do that one particular job that they had at the time they developed their supposed disability? There are plenty of other jobs, many of them physically undemanding jobs, out there in the world. For crying out loud people who are wheelchair bound, people who are missing limbs, remain productive in the workplace.
We all pay the freight for the lazy parasites out there, like Gianquitti, who feel that the rest of us should work to support them for no good reason.
I'll be surprised if ex post facto actions can knock out a preexisting pension. Do you think the firefighters, even as angry as they are at Gianquitti, would support that? I'm not saying I know the law on this, just a gut feeling. I know there are judges in NY state serving prison time for corruption who still get their judicial pensions! The disability pension is 41,000 take home, probably equal to 65,000 in a salary, more if he had a private sector job and you figure in the social security tax he's not paying. Nice (work?) if you can get it! Also, not sure it's relevant but Gianquitti boght his house for 350,000 in October 2005, the very top of the market, maybe that contributed to his general miserableness.
Posted by: observer at May 27, 2008 12:54 PMThat a possible conviction for MURDER "could" only "threaten" a public pension tells you all everything you need to know about how unbelievably screwed up our whole public sector compensation system actually is. I've got a brilliant outside the box idea .. if you MURDER someone, you shouldn't be eligible for one! Period!
Posted by: Will at May 27, 2008 5:57 PMJust remember Providence's disability scam when they keep crying for more state aid.
The ProJo ran stories on this scam years ago.
The Democrats in the General Assembly could have withheld money until Providence cleaned up its act.
They never have.
Wouldn't want to offend the AFL-CIO, now would we?
Posted by: Tom W at May 27, 2008 9:06 PMWill summed it up. Forget murder, anyone convicted of a felony upon another person shouldn't be able to collect a pension.
Physical disability pensions were designed to help firefighters and cops who can't physically work any longer due to a serious job-related injury. I wonder how those cops who have been shot in the line of duty and returned to duty feel about a rookie cop collecting decades of payments for getting a bum knee after 6 months.
Posted by: Anthony at May 27, 2008 11:13 PM