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With Missouri's legislative session officially underway, one of the Senate's first orders of business was to hold a hearing on the fate of the Second Injury Fund, and other workers' compensation controversies.
Senate Bill 572, sponsored by Sen. Tom Dempsey (R-St. Charles), seeks to fix mistakes made by the Legislature in 2005 when Republicans sought to reduce workers' compensation costs and once again improve the business environment. As STLToday.com pointed out, those changes actually bankrupted the Fund, which aids workers who aggravate a previous disability, while protecting employers from having to pay for injuries that they didn't cause.
Some of the state's leading industry associations agree that the problem is real. "The problem just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Until the law changes, we're going to be in this situation," said Richard Moore, assistant general counsel and director of regulatory affairs for the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry to the Southeast Missourian.
By the end of 2011, Moore said, 170 people were not receiving payments owed to them from the Fund totaling $13 million. By statute, the state has to pay 9 percent interest on those late payments as well, Moore noted. About 700 cases are filed each month waiting to be adjudicated. Not counting those cases, the Fund's estimated liability for awards already approved by judges is $1 billion.
"More than 100 injured workers are waiting for benefit payments from Missouri's Second Injury Fund that were awarded to them under current law, with no promise of when their benefits will be paid," said Missouri Chamber President and CEO Daniel P. Mehan to the Northwest Missourian. "More than 30,000 workers are waiting to have their cases heard through the SIF, with no idea when their cases will be resolved."
According to Missourinet, Rep Tim Jones (R-Eureka) agrees. Jones points to the Fund as one of three components of the current business climate in Missouri that Republicans say are hindering employers from earning more and hiring more workers, along with co-employee liability and occupational disease issues.
Although legislative limits on the latter provisions seems inevitable, the fate of the Fund is less clear. Moore said the Chamber will advocate to limit the Fund to only those who have a previous workmans compensation injury or those who were injured during active duty military service. Business will also have to be willing to pay more, temporarily, he said. The Chamber will advocate to raise the surcharge from 3 percent to 4.5 percent through the year 2020.
Emotions on the subject run high."All we're looking for is a fair shake when we are injured in the place where we work. We are not looking to break our employer," said Missouri AFL-CIO spokesman Herb Johnson when testifying against the bill, according to Ozarks First, which also reported that Sen. Jason Crowell (R - Cape Girardeau) had several heated exchanges with business representatives where he accused them of trying to shirk their financial obligations and disregarding the work done by elected lawmakers.
The Fund has long been generally seen as both a political football and a time bomb. For almost twenty years, it has been kicked around by the state's business groups in efforts to recruit new members from each other with sometimes outlandish rhetoric as to who can be the most pro-business on the rather arcane topic.
Since the 2005 legislation, there has been no serious scholarly disagreement that, absent proper arrangements, the Fund is destined to blast a hole in the state's currently healthy credit rating, once creditors inevitably levy on Missouri's general performance bond.
Recent statements by representatives of the Associated Industries of Missouri have led to cautious optimism that AIM is prepared to end its long and solitary holdout on a legislative Fund fix. The self-congratulatory tone of its comments however, appear to continue to fan the competitive flames with its fellow business groups, thus leaving the fate of thousands of Missourians, and, indeed, the state itself, in doubt. |
