LIRR Announces Anti-Fraud Measures

It's taken two weeks since the New York Times uncovered massive fraud and abuse of a federal program that grants disability payments to railroad workers that appears to have cost taxpayers more than $250 million since 2000, but the LIRR has instituted new policies designed to thwart the rampant abuse that saw nearly all employees obtain disability payments.

The railroad chief, Helena Williams, also said that all management and union employees — about 6,800 workers in all — would receive “additional ethics training” on the rules governing federal disability payments.

In announcing these steps at a news conference, Ms. Williams said that her railroad, and those who finance it — specifically taxpayers and commuters — were being victimized by what she described as lax federal regulations that made it possible for virtually everyone who wants a disability payment to get one.

The New York Times reported last month that former L.I.R.R. employees had collected about a quarter of a billion dollars in disability payments from the Railroad Retirement Board, a little-known federal agency that is similar to Social Security but serves only railroad workers.

The L.I.R.R. pays $91 million a year to the retirement board. Workers also contribute through a tax on their earnings.

After reporters began inquiring last February into the high percentage of disabilities given to career L.I.R.R. employees — as many as 97 percent of retirees in one recent year — investigations were begun by the United States attorney in the Eastern District of New York, inspectors general from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the retirement board, and the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo.

There's going to be increased ethics training and the LIRR is calling on an overhaul of the federal Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) to prevent future abuse.

At the same time, investigations continue into the LIRR operations. LIRR contracts enable employees to game the system so that they can receive payouts equivalent to their former pay, and no one ever bothered to see whether any of those involved were actually disabled - not the LIRR or the RRB.

It remains to be seen whether anyone will go after the employees who clearly received disability payments despite having no actual disabilities that could be traced to their employment at the LIRR. After all, how disabled are you if you're able to regularly play golf on the state dime?