As a result of legislation filed by the Association, the law, which now requires that all disability retirees be reevaluated once every three years (once a year during the first two years of retirement), may be changed to limit reevaluations to the first ten years of retirement.

H2510, filed on behalf of the Association by Representative David Flynn (D-Bridgewater) and Senator Michael Knapik (R-Westfield), was released favorably to the House in June, by the Joint Committee on Public Service. The bill is now awaiting further action before the Committee on Steering and Policy, which is chaired by Rep. Paul Donato (D-Medford).

Association officials filed H2510 in response to complaints expressed by members, retired on disability. Under a reevaluation, disability retirees are required to gather their up-to-date medical records from their physicians and send the reports to the state for review. The records review may then prompt a reexamination, whereby the retiree would be reexamined by state assigned doctors to determine if the individual may be capable of returning to active duty.

In order to be found fit for a return to active duty, a medical panel must determine that a retiree is medically, physically, and psychologically capable of performing the essential duties of the job from which they retired or similar position. By all accounts, even those retirees who petition to be returned to work find it difficult to satisfy this standard.

Committee Targets Waste

Over the eleven years that the new evaluation and reexamination process has been in place, some 120 disability retirees (less than 1% of the total population of disability retirees) have been found fit to return to work. However, in nearly every instance it has been the retiree who has petitioned the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission (PERAC) to be found fit to return to active duty in the position from which they retired.

PERAC, which was created in 1996 in the wake of a Boston Globe series alleging disability fraud, is the state agency charged with overseeing our public retirement systems. One of the agency’s many duties is to conduct a review of each disability retiree to determine the individual’s current status. Approximately 5,000 disability retirees are reevaluated each year.

When the bill was released in June, Committee Chairmen Senator Ben Downing and Representative Jay Kaufman took the unusual step of publicly commenting on the bill. Both chairmen cited the Association’s testimony, at a May hearing on the issue, as the driving force behind the release of the bill.

“This was an issue we were not aware of prior to hearing from the Retiree’s Association. Upon review, it simply makes no sense for us to continue reevaluating retirees who have been retired longer than ten years. These retirees are disabled and most likely will never be able to return to work,” explained Chairman Downing. “The current system wastes public resources and is unfair to retirees.”