Wow, LA is getting hardcore!

[BERIGAN]

City may begin firing workers who commit fraud

By Mariel Garza

Staff Writer

A discovery that two municipal workers convicted of workers' compensation fraud were still on the city's payroll prompted City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo to push two proposals Friday that would allow the city to fire employees who commit fraud.

The ordinances are set to be introduced to the City Council next week by West Valley Councilman Dennis Zine.

"Employees who commit workers' compensation fraud, I believe, forfeit the privilege of employment with the city of Los Angeles," Delgadillo said in a letter sent to the council.

Those two workers have since left the city, but it underscored that there has been no automatic trigger for cutting employees who have found to have filed fraudulent workers' comp claims, officials said.

"The policy was, there was no policy," said Delgadillo's spokesman, Matt Szabo.

Officials said employee Michael Randolph was working as a gardener/caretaker for the Department of Public Works when he filed a claim that he injured his back in 1996. He was found to have filed a false claim and pleaded guilty in November 2001, but wasn't fired until last month.

The other worker, Monique Jacobs, who worked at Los Angeles International Airport, was convicted of fraud in 2002. She quit, also in July, in lieu of being fired, according to Delgadillo.

The city's workers' compensation costs have been rising steeply every year, and the city expects to pay more than $142 million to injured employees in the current fiscal years.

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,20...1560447,00.html

[BERIGAN]

I saw Henry Rollins once in L.A. Standing in front of the Big band section of a Virgin Superstore....no joke! More of a Thrash man myself, punk is just too darn slow!

Edited August 13, 2003 by BERIGAN