Hundreds of millions of dollars gone. Injured workers to pay the price.

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 8, 2006

CONTACT: John Kohlstrand at (614) 466-9036

Hundreds of millions of dollars gone.

Injured workers to pay the price.

House Democratic Leader Joyce Beatty expressed disappointment at House Republicans’ decision today to cut benefits for injured workers.

Senate Bill 7 – which passed the House largely along party lines Wednesday – will cut roughly $100 million in benefits annually at the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation. For instance, if signed into law, it reduces the bureau’s working-wage loss benefit from nearly four years to just one year.

The vote to cut benefits comes as law enforcement officials continue to investigate a pay-to-play scandal at the bureau that has already cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Tom Noe, the GOP insider at the center of the scandal, has been charged with 53 felony counts; he is believed to have stolen $13 million from the agency.

 “This bill utterly fails to address the reasons why hundreds of millions of dollars have been lost or stolen,” said Beatty, D-Columbus. “This bill actually backtracks on reform. And it places terrible new burdens on men and women who want to work but cannot.”

“This bill is an insult to every injured worker in Ohio,” Beatty said.

Beatty said she found it particularly troubling that S.B. 7 blocks a bureau initiative to address the pay-to-play scandal.

Last September, the bureau’s Oversight Commission barred investment management firms and their associates from donating more than $250 to political campaigns up to one year before receiving a bureau contract. S.B. 7 blocks that reform, raising the contribution limit to $1,000.

Beatty also dismissed a last-minute GOP decision to include a minimum wage hike in S.B. 7 as political theater. The provision raises the state minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 – the level set by the federal government ten years ago.

“If we are serious about raising the minimum wage, why are we settling for what the federal government enacted ten years ago?” Beatty asked.

Republicans today used parliamentary procedures to prevent Democrats from offering an amendment that would have raised the minimum wage to $6.85. Republicans also tabled  Democratic amendments:

n       to lower the cap on political contributions from prospective bureau investment managers to $250.

n       from Representative Barbara Sykes, D-Akron, to rein in hospital spending by restricting the bureau’s payments to the cost of services plus 10 percent. According to an investigation by the Columbus Dispatch, the bureau has spent far more than that over the past ten years – costing the agency hundreds of millions of dollars. Examples of excessive spending approved by the bureau include $24,000 for a $1,000 surgical screw and $158,000 for a $22,000 electronic ear implant.

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