State Spends $42.8 Million on Disability Payments, Recipients' Afflictions Unknown

Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 8/30/2012 | Jarrett Skorup

[MichCapCon]

The state of Michigan apparently does not keep track of the afflictions of state workers collecting disability payments provided by taxpayers.

According to the departments that should be overseeing the program, the state spent $42.8 million in 2011 on disability payments without knowing whether employees are disabled. If true, the state may be breaking the law.

A decade ago, Michigan spent $35.5 million on disability payments. The state has 47,818 current employees in the system and 3,527 people receiving disability benefits. But when asked, multiple state agencies were unable to provide a basic list of afflictions of those receiving benefits or where to obtain this information.

Michigan Capitol Confidential sent Freedom of Information Act requests to four separate state departments to try to find the information — each area of government reported that the records "do not exist within the department." The FOIAs were sent to the Office of Retirement Services; the Department of Technology, Management & Budget; the Department of Human Services; and the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. The first request was sent on April 9, 2012.

[jimpick]

This does not surprise me at all. One year I had my wife pay my licensing fees three times because they could not find my payments.

[jimpick]

And to top it off we told them we had the cancelled checks and they said this did not prove we paid it.