City Slashes Pay to Injured Employees

Editor's Note: This is part one of a series.

A new policy effective July 1 rolled out for city staffers will reduce the amount of money that employees will receive when they are not able to work.

The City Council decided to whack one-third of the take home pay—the city’s portion—off of what city staffers have historically received when they are injured and unable to work.

Historically, they have received 100 percent of their salary—66 2/3 percent came from worker’s compensation insurance and the rest came directly from the city.

With the changes, the city’s one-third will not be paid out past one week, said

“Given the lower than average salaries of the Hyattsville Police Department many are living paycheck to paycheck.”

This also means that contributions to health insurance and retirement will not be made when an employee is out of work because those contributions come out of the salary paid by the city.

“It isn’t consistent with other law enforcement agencies,” O’Hagan said. “We can’t find another that doesn’t provide a paycheck to injured cops.”

The new policy applies to all city employees, but O’Hagan said it has especially affected the police department’s morale.

“They’re kind of beaten down,” he said. “The City Council severed ties of loyalty between its police officers last week [when the policy took effect].”

said it was a tough decision to make but due to the amount of time city employees have taken off over the past several years, and given other financial woes, something had to give.

“We had to weigh a lot of different things in making this decision,” Tartaro said. “It’s unfortunate. I don’t know how we got here.”

Last year, the city paid about $400,000 in salary for staffers who were out on worker’s compensation leave. Estimates for 2011 indicate a $100,000 increase. And for FY 2012, the city projects that number to double, Tartaro said. Due to the added claim time, the city’s worker’s compensation insurance rate increased by 80 percent, he said.

Tartaro has been on the City Council since 2005 and He said the payment 100 percent payment plan was something he just found out about during this most recent budget process.

“It certainly wasn’t common knowledge to the City Council,” he said. “Do I like doing this? No. Do I understand that people are upset about it? Yes. There are no good choices here.”

Part of the reason for the high amount of worker’s compensation days taken by city staff could be that the city did have a workplace safety program in place. That has recently changed under Tartaro’s watch.

“This issue is not about the police,” he said. “This is an issue about managing worker’s compensation for all our employees, [creating a] safety program and a back to work program.”