Chicago police officials are forming a special internal investigative unit to look at the small fraction of police officers who make the most of the department’s ample sick-leave policy, hoping to separate the truly ill from habitual fakers, who might be fired.
The police union’s contract gives Chicago officers an extraordinary number of sick days–an entire year for every two years on the job. The provision is a perk intended to let seriously ill or seriously injured officers recuperate without going on long-term disability, which has ramifications for their pensions and insurance policies, said Personnel Commander Brad Woods. The department’s personnel division, however, suspects that some officers are abusing the system. Police Department figures show that about 5 percent of the more than 13,000 officers accounted for more than half of the sick days taken in 2002. All of the officers in that 5 percent took more than 100 days off in the year.
Forty-four percent of officers did not use any sick days in 2002, according to police spokesman David Bayless.
Still, the 5 percent figure is enough for administrators to begin interviewing applicants for a medical integrity unit that would crack down on officers who abuse the sick-leave policy, Woods said. The unit would likely consist of a sergeant and five or six investigators.
“There’s a lot of good, hardworking police officers out there who never abuse the medical leave. If we continue to let a few officers abuse this benefit, it really sets a bad example for the hardworking officers,” Woods said. “It’s a very generous benefit and we don’t want to lose it.”
Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), chairman of the City Council’s Police and Fire Committee, endorsed the new effort.
“I think there is a reason to have more supervision in this area,” Carothers said. “Whenever you have absence of supervision, then things do go awry. I think it is important to let people who are on sick time [know] that they indeed have to be sick.”
Mark Donahue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said the union does not object to the investigators as long as the department does not cause problems for officers with legitimate illnesses.
“We don’t see anything wrong with it if it’s a means by which they can keep better track of it,” Donahue said.
Department officials are still working out the details of how big the unit will be and how exactly it would work. But the first thing it will do will be to go through medical records.
“What we’re looking at is finding a pattern. Are they always getting sick around the holidays, or their days off, around vacation time, or when they hit a certain watch?” Woods said.
The investigators would work for the personnel division, but when they find abuses, Woods said, they would likely hand the cases over to the internal affairs division to pursue disciplinary action against the officers.
The department would seek to fire the most serious offenders, said Bayless.