Staying home, collecting checks
Doctors say they're ready to return to work, but disabled city employees get paid to remain idle
State Rep. Edward Acevedo’s brother has been sitting at home for two years, living on disability pay because he says he hurt his back trying to remove a pipe while working for the city water department. His doctor said he could go back to work last January, though in a less physically demanding job.
But Joseph Acevedo Jr. is still off — and still collecting $3,600 a month from taxpayers — because the city hasn’t found him a new job.
"I can't go back to the same job. I'm just waiting for a job to open up,'' Acevedo told a reporter before slamming the door of his Southwest Side apartment.
So it would take about 60 homeowners to pay the $40,000 in disability payments one worker can get in one year. And there are hundreds of city workers claiming injury and collecting payments.
While on leave, they get 75 percent of their pay -- 66.6 percent from the city treasury, the rest from city pension funds, all supported by property taxes.
Who are they? The city won't say.
But the Sun-Times obtained a list of the water department's injured workers who've been deemed able to return to work. Beside Acevedo, the list also contains the son of a retired judge, the son of a union leader and members of political groups, including the Hispanic Democratic Organization created by Mayor Daley.
How much does it cost taxpayers to send disability checks to those 91 employees? The city won't answer that, either.
If, like Acevedo, each worker gets $3,600 a month -- about $43,000 a year -- taxpayers would be paying about $3.9 million a year to keep them home when they could be back at work. City workers on disability leave get 75 percent of their pay -- 66.6 percent from the city, the rest from city pension funds. All of it tax-free.
Finding new jobs for injured workers isn't easy, city officials said. Anti-patronage rulings, union rules and equal-employment laws make it "complicated'' to place injured workers in other jobs, in their view.
They said they couldn't say how many injured workers have been given a "new assignment that suits their abilities" -- one of the goals stated on the Web site for the Mayor's Office of Budget and Management.
But Joseph Spingola, an attorney who has filed hundreds of workers compensation cases for city employees, has a good idea.
"It doesn't happen,'' Spingola said.
He and other lawyers for city workers criticized the Daley administration and the City Council Finance Committee -- which has sole jurisdiction over workers comp cases -- for not getting employees back to work.
"If you talk to the people at the city, they'll tell you, 'We've got budget restraints, we've got union restraints, we've got political restraints,''' Spingola said. "I can take a budget and find you how many inspector jobs, but damned if any of my clients can get one of those jobs. I've got people who've been off work a long time and would like to go back. But the city can't find them a job.
"There are always openings. There are always retirements,'' Spingola said. "But I've got a 37-year-old with 16 years in, and they've got nothing for him. Why should they put him out to pasture? They just keep paying him'' to stay home.
Green, a bricklayer, has been off work since reporting he hurt his left thumb and hand while breaking a brick with a hammer in August 1999. He had five surgeries, according to his lawyer, but, by January 2002, his doctor said Green could return to work, though not as a bricklayer.
Four and a half years later, the city hasn't found Green another job.
And Green, 49, hasn't complained. He's still cashing the $42,000 in disability checks he gets each year -- more than $315,000 since 1999 -- while his workers comp claim against the city languishes.
"He has been paid,'' said Gen's attorney, Kenneth Wolfe. "That's why we haven't rocked the boat harder in the past."
But now Green is pushing the city for a new job.
"He's found out that certain pension rights that he thought his new wife would retain, she would not retain unless he gets back to work,'' Wolfe said. "We've been pressing the city to try to find another city job. If he were to die, she would get nothing at this point. Apparently, that would be rectified if he got back to work with the city.''
Green has 28 years of service with the city -- including seven on disability.
He has had two other workers comp claims against the city -- getting $11,567 for an injury to his right ring finger in 1989 and more than $60,000 after he hurt his right shoulder in 1994, state records show.
If the city transferred injured workers into vacant jobs without having them compete with other candidates, that would violate the federal Shakman decree that forbids most patronage hiring, Hoyle said.
Also, Hoyle said, union contracts make it tough to transfer, say, an injured garbage man to a clerical job -- a post represented by a different union.
And injured workers can't have their pay cut, even if they are retrained for a normally lower-paying job, she said. But moving that garbage man to work alongside a female clerk who's paid substantially less and not cutting his pay could violate federal laws that mandate equal pay for equal work, Hoyle said.
Michael Shakman, the lawyer who won the federal court order banning most patronage hiring, disputed Hoyle's contention that the city would violate the decree by moving injured workers into vacant jobs without competition.
"The Shakman decree doesn't bar the city from giving someone a job because he's recovered from an injury," Shakman said.
"Even if they can't do their previous job, or can only do it with restrictions, you want to get those people back to work,'' said Greg Krohm, executive director of the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions in Madison, Wis., and formerly administrator of the Wisconsin workers compensation program.
"You don't want to let those people stay home and watch TV or work in the garden. You don't want a person to think of themselves as disabled. It creates a disability.''
At the water department, the list of workers deemed able to return to work -- but who remain at home -- includes several with political connections:
• • Joseph Acevedo Jr., the legislator's brother whose 2004 injury claim was his third since he was hired eight years ago. He settled one case for $12,272; the others are pending.
• • Thomas Flisk, a laborer and son of Theodore Flisk, vice president of Laborers Union Local 1092, which represents water department workers. On disability more than two years, Flisk might be recovered from elbow injuries suffered while operating a jackhammer, but he could still need wrist surgery, his lawyer said. In 12 years, Flisk, 37, has filed four workers comp cases. He has settled three, for $111,453.
• Joseph Furio, a laborer whose sponsor is the city's First Ward Regular Democratic Organization, according to the clout list. Furio, 32, has been off work for more than two years, since he reported hurting his neck while lifting a bag of cement off a truck.
• William G. Parker, 46, a laborer who was once a precinct captain for Ald. Dick Mell's 33rd Ward Regular Democratic Organization. Parker started working for the city in December 1998. He has been off since June 2001, when he reported injuring his right shoulder while unloading a bag of cement.
• Timothy Peek, a laborer also sponsored by Mell's organization, according to the clout list. Peek, 40, has been out more than two years, since he reported twisting his back while trying to unhook a bungee cord -- his fifth claim in 10 years. He settled the other four for $58,625, state records show.
Scarpelli, 37, has been off work since July 2004, after he said he bumped his head on a stairway and fell, fracturing two discs in his neck. At the time, he was doing clerical work for the city's Law Department -- a light-duty assignment he got after a 2001 accident when he was operating a snowplow that flipped over, pinning him underneath, causing nerve damage to his arm.
Scarpelli said doctors told him last March that he could return on light duty, but the city hasn't found him a job. He gets about $1,500 in disability checks every two weeks.
The clout list shows an Anthony Scarpelli sought a city job in 1994 with help from Terry Teele, a former Daley aide. Scarpelli said he's not sure if that's him or his father, also a city worker on disability leave.
Scarpelli, a cousin of the late mobster Gerald Scarpelli, said he also helped run a patronage army for Carmen Iacullo and Anthony Pucillo, two former transportation department officials.
"I want to come back to work," said Scarpelli, who settled four previous cases for $28,000. "Ninety-nine percent of the people don't want to go back to work.''
And if the city can't find him a job, Scarpelli said, they should "buy me out."