Slammed with $1.5 Million in Disability Costs for 2 Police Officers, Supervisor Calls for Reform

NORTH FORK, NY - After Southold Town has been slammed with $1.5 million in disability costs for two police officers out on leave after injuries on the job, Supervisor Scott Russell is calling for reform to the system.

At Thursday night’s state of the town address, Russell said one of his top priorities for 2016 is disability reform.

Southold Town Police Officer Joseph Wysocki, Russell said, has been out on disability leave since 2010 received a total of $641,570, plus benefits, for a total of $950,000.

Meanwhile, Southold Town Police Officer David Huntstein, Russell said, has been out on disability leave since 2012, has received $393,017 in salary, plus benefits, for a total of $600,000.

Under the current system, employees out on disability receive full salary and benefits, and even raises, tax free, Russell said.

To that end, Russell would like to establish a time limit on disability leave. “Currently, the leave is open-ended, which can sometimes go on for years,” Russell said. “Establishing a limit of 24 months is more than enough time to determine if an officer is able to go back to active duty or not. If he or she can’t, disability retirement approval should be declared and the disability retirement application should be approved expeditiously.”

As it stands, the supervisor said, the applications have been pending for “months, with no answer” a situation that’s “not fair” to the officers, the current force, or to taxpayers.

Second, Russell would like to see an independent facilitator assigned to each case to ensure that the municipality and the insurer are providing all the medical resources necessary to help an officer get back to active services —and also, to “ascertain that the officer is taking all of the necessary steps to utilize those resources to rehabilitate and get back to active service. Penalties should be imposed should either party not meet its obligations,” Russell said.

Russell would also like to see New York State abolish the “tax free” status of the injured officer’s wage earnings, he said. “This serves absolutely no purpose. First, the officer is already assured of income and financial security during his leave under separate provisions of New York General Municipal Law Section 207. This appears to be nothing more than a contrivance established years ago to foster political goodwill with the police unions.”

Finally, the supervisor proposed the elimination of the state’s policy that says “once an employee has worked restricted/light duty for approximately two years, that assignment becomes the employee’s ‘job’ and so should be retired. The net result of that policy,” the supervisor said, “is that an employer that provides restricted/light duty to an employee for ‘too long’ will ‘own’ that employee until the employee’s retirement or death — unless a medical miracel occurs and the employee can return to full duty.”