Report: Police Chief Creates Unit to Evaluate Comp Claims| Staff Compensation Information

Thursday, June 17, 2021 | 0

The Fresno Bee reports that the city and its chief officer are investigating the possibility that law enforcement officials are abusing the employee compensation system.

Chief Paco Balderrama

Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderrama has set up an investigative unit to administer workers’ compensation claims and prosecute those who are on extended vacation with injuries.

The boss allegedly suggested that the city’s department pay officials more to stay home than they do when they report to work.

“What we have here is a system that I’ve never seen before,” the boss allegedly said. “So the fact that you can be free from work and actually make more money than you get to work doesn’t give much incentive. I believe there was very little to no accountability before. “

The California Labor Code allows law enforcement officers to receive up to one year of sick pay in lieu of temporary disability. Other city and state officials have complained about the law.

Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin also cited continued pay as a concern in a 2015 report on the cost of compensation at the city police department, saying it was a “perverse incentive to stay home.”

Former Governor Jerry Brown said in a 2015 vetoed bill that would have given Oceanside lifeguards sick pay instead of TD, the cost of benefits paid under Section 4850 of the Labor Code has “increased at an alarming rate are”.

Governor Gavin Newsom said in 2019 that school districts may not survive the “addition of a well-intentioned but costly benefit” if they veto a law that would have given peace officers 4,850 benefits.

Meanwhile, Fresno city manager Thomas Esqueda reportedly said the police are taking the lead in investigating what happens to their own claims because if someone is “playing the workers’ comp system, it is criminal activity”.

The Bee reports that the labor costs of the department’s employees rose from $ 4.96 million 10 years ago to $ 11.4 million in the 2022 budget.

The city initiated an investigation into the police authority’s claims, but it was never completed.