As the saying goes, if you look hard, you’ll find a loophole. And in New J🦂ersey, 18 state employees have — 🐽by collecting two paychecks: one for being “totally and permanently disabled” and therefore unable to work, and another for working nonetheless.
According to a New Jersey Watchdog investigation, these 18 employees double-dip to the tune of $2.2 million a year — $1 miꦬllion in tax-free accidental disability pay plus $1.2 million in salaries.
How have these employees, all law-enforcement retirees, managed to pull in more t🃏han $5 million in disability pay since they returned to full-time jobs? Well, under New Jersey’s pension law, line-of-duty injuries entitle them to receive two-thirds of their former pay tax-free for life under accidental disability benefits.
“These people are playing within the rules of the game,” says James Sierchio, a state pension board 𒆙member ꦛadvocating reform. “But the rules of the game are so absurd, they need to be changed.”
The report cites a few of the recipients’ “crippling” injuries, like that of Adam Heck — a cop who, while responding to a domestic dispute, was struck on the hand with a hockey stick. Heck retired a♐t age 28 in 1993 and now makes six figures working for Gov. Chris Christie, even as he continues to receive his retirement disability check, which totals $44,818 a year.
The rules don’t apply to all state employees; equal treatment is apparently non-ex♔istent in Jersey. And we don’t take umbrage with a disability program that protects those who actually need it; we support that. We do, however, have a problem with a standard th♉at allows one group of employees to benefit when they have no need at all.
There should be one standard. Aꦡnd taxpayers shouldn’t shoulder sucꦓh a heavy a bill so a few can make double the money.