Here’s something to digest with your big new Illinois income tax increase:
You would assume that the Menard Correctional Center is a dangerous place to work. It does, after all, hold violent prisoners. You probably wouldn’t assume that the biggest injury risk for the guards is locking and unlocking the doors. Or that this is costing you a lot of money.
Illinois has paid out at least $10 million over the last three years in workers’ compensation claims to employees at the southern Illinois prison. Much of the money has gone to corrections officers who say they suffered repetitive-stress injuries from, yes, locking and unlocking cells.
The Belleville News-Democrat reported last month that 389 guards and other workers have filed more than 500 work comp claims in those three years. The prison employs fewer than 800 people, including 567 guards.
That $10 million figure will grow. Many of the claims are still pending.
The warden, Dave Rednour, collected a $75,678 work comp award in June.
Who hears these cases? That would be the arbitrators who work for the state agency that handles work comp claims. The News-Democrat reported that nearly one in four of the arbitrators have filed compensation claims for on-the-job injuries. So have 17 of the staffers at the state agency that reviews the claims. Most have cited repetitive trauma.
Yes, it looks like everybody is getting in on the act.
The General Assembly had time to pass its big tax hike, but didn’t find time to reform the state’s much-abused workers’ compensation system. Too many vested interests among doctors, hospitals, lawyers and unions. Too complicated to ram through, as opposed to a simple piece of legislation that jacks up income taxes.
Workers’ compensation insurance costs are out of control, despite a reform law passed five years ago. That doesn’t just cost the state money. It costs employers — the same employers now being asked to pay much higher taxes.
Illinois employers pay some of the highest work comp rates in the U.S. It’s another job killer in a state that seems intent on sending employers elsewhere.
Repetitive trauma is a serious problem in the workplace, so no one should assume that a claim for it is bogus. Menard has mechanical locking mechanisms — modern prisons, by contrast, have electronic locks. Do the mechanical locks endanger workers? A spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Corrections said it is concerned about working conditions and safety at the prison, but declined further comment.
For anyone inclined to cheat, it’s easier to fake or exaggerate a repetitive trauma claim than many other injuries. It’s difficult for employers to disprove, often pitting expert against expert with the bias, in Illinois anyway, favoring workers.
Illinois has pretty much given up trying to determine which claims are true and which are not.
An overwhelming number of the Menard claims for repetitive trauma were approved without opposition from the state’s lawyers. Unless the system changes, the rest of the claims are likely to pay off, too. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Lisa Madigan said that fighting these cases could be “an uphill battle.”
So why don’t we just hang a Free Money sign outside Madigan’s office? Because when you make a claim against the state, you’re almost guaranteed to win.
Madigan’s office has pledged to take another look at this. State insurance investigators have said they will follow up, too. Workers’ compensation claims at other Illinois prisons supposedly are under scrutiny.
As they were pushing the income tax hike through the Legislature, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton said they would work with Republicans to fix work comp.
Promises, promises. So far, all employers and employees can count on is a big tax hike.
Illinois needs a work comp system that helps truly injured workers, and only those truly injured workers. That means passing a reform bill and putting up a defense against fraud.
