Rick Karlin of the Times Union writes:

“Add skyrocketing workers’ compensation rates to the list of costs that local governments will be passing on to property taxpayers.

While mayors, county executives and other local officials have been warning that rising health care costs for their employees, as well as pension expenses, put them in a bind, a recent survey found that workers’ compensation rates have been going up as well.

Precise increases are hard to pin down since rates vary by location and particular job classifications.

But PERMA, a consortium of towns and counties that pool resources to buy workers’ compensation insurance, says their costs rose an estimated 34 percent compounded between 2009 and 2011.”

To read more click here.

Rick Karlin of the Times Union writes:

“New York’s workers’ compensation system has long been criticized as slow, costly and unresponsive to the needs of employees and employers alike. More than three years after the latest dose of reform, things haven’t markedly improved.

Reforming this creaking mechanism was one of the first priorities of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who in March 2007 met with labor and business leaders to announce a historic compromise. Going forward, injured workers would get more money, but only for a set period of time — rather than for life, as had been the case in the past.

Both sides hailed the change as long overdue. “This is a major step toward reducing the cost of doing business in New York state,” said Ken Adams, president of the state Business Council at the time. Adams now heads the Empire State Development Corp.

In the years since then, the reforms seem to have stumbled.

Critics, including lawyers on either side in workers’ compensation matters, point to a backlog of at least 12,000 new cases since the reforms.

They place a good deal of blame on the politically appointed Workers’ Compensation Board and its leadership.

“Businesses haven’t seen any savings,” said Peter J. Walsh of Walsh & Hacker, an Albany law firm that defends employers in compensation cases. “Gov. Spitzer promised this immediate relief, and we are nowhere close to that.”

“It has not worked out the way that many people on both sides of the equation had expected it to work,” agreed John Sciortino of Rochester’s Segar & Sciortino, which represents injured workers.

The failure to reform the workers’ compensation system is one of the many negative results of the legislative chaos that came in the wake of Spitzer’s sudden resignation in March 2008. Critics say the board began to drift soon after and never recovered its bearings.

This lassitude doesn’t mean that those who suffer workplace injuries don’t get compensated. Instead, the slow pace of reform has meant that workers continue to collect payments through the same open-ended schedule that has existed for years.

That’s costly to employers, who end up paying higher insurance premiums. For workers, it represents a form of legal limbo.

“They’re kind of treading water,” said Margaret Moree, director of federal affairs at the Business Council.”

To read more click here.

This article was that appears in today’s New York Times is reported by Walt Bogdanich, Andrew W. Lehren, Robert A. McDonald and Nicholas Phillips and written by Mr. Bogdanich.

“To understand what it’s like to work on the railroad — the Long Island Rail Road — a good place to start is the Sunken Meadow golf course, a rolling stretch of state-owned land on Long Island Sound.

During the workweek, it is not uncommon to find retired L.I.R.R. employees, sometimes dozens of them, golfing there. A few even walk the course. Yet this is not your typical retiree outing.

These golfers are considered disabled. At an age when most people still work, they get a pension and tens of thousands of dollars in annual disability payments — a sum roughly equal to the base salary of their old jobs. Even the golf is free, courtesy of New York State taxpayers.”

To read more click here.

Jeremy Smerd writes in Crain’s New York Business(subscription-based)- “Business groups are hopeful that the climate in Albany is ripe for changing New York’s “scaffold law,” which, they argue, makes employers, contractors and property owners liable for nearly all workplace-related injuries.

Past attempts to repeal the century-old law have failed, opponents believe, because Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver protects trial lawyers. But with a moribund economy and a governor advertising that New York is open for business, that could change.

Business groups have also switched tactics. The Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York has joined with the Business Council of New York State, the New York Farm Bureau, the Associated General Contractors of New York State and other industry groups to seek reform, rather than repeal, of the law.

“It’s certainly going to be an uphill battle,” said Tom Stebbins of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance. “But New York state is looking for jobs. This can bring those jobs back.”

He cites a study by the Pacific Research Institute that says changes to the scaffold law could create as many as 86,000 construction jobs. The University of Albany is also working on a study this fall to reveal how much municipalities pay to settle workplace-injury cases.”

To read more click here.

A new coalition of New York employers, farmers and others has joined together to make a major push to reform New York’s century-old “Scaffold Law” to help promote economic growth and recovery throughout New York.

Under New York’s Scaffold Law, contractors, employers and property owners are held absolutely liable for “elevation related injuries.” When an injured worker sues, the contractor, employer, or owner is automatically liable even if they weren’t at fault.

New York remains the only state in the nation where a worker is not held responsible for his or her own negligence. Illinois was the last to reform the law, in 1995, and the effect was immediate: 50,000 new jobs and a sharp decrease in workplace injuries. By reforming the law, workplace safety will be improved.

“New York State’s elected officials must confront the fact that simply doing business here is more expensive than in almost every other state. The Scaffold Law is ‘Exhibit A’ of our outdated and biased legal system,” said Tom Stebbins, executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York (LRANY). “Reforming the Scaffold Law will be a first step to getting our economy moving again and sending a message that much-needed change has reached New York State.”

The tremendous costs of the Scaffold Law are passed along to all New Yorkers. Since there is virtually no defense against a million-dollar Scaffold Law suit, the cost of general liability insurance in New York is extremely high, driving up costs for all construction projects, including taxpayer-funded projects like infrastructure improvements and school construction. This has a significant impact on New York: construction costs go up, employers hire fewer workers (or must lay off those they do have) and the economy suffers.

The new Scaffold Law Reform coalition is supporting Assembly Bill 2835 (D- Morelle), which would give New York property owners, business owners, contractors and municipalities the chance to defend themselves in court when an injury occurs due to negligence. The bill would not prevent injured workers from suing their employers or prevent injured workers from receiving workers’ compensation benefits.

The coalition has launched a new website – www.scaffoldlaw.org – to educate New Yorkers about the issue and to encourage grassroots supporters to contact their legislators to express their support for reform.

“The Scaffold Law is more than 100 years old. A lot has changed in those years to help improve working conditions, including the development of OSHA standards and workers’ compensation. We need to modify this antiquated law which now serves as nothing more than an increase to the cost of doing business in New York and a deterrent to the creation of new jobs. In the end, every New Yorker pays the price,” said Stebbins.

# # #

Members of the Scaffold Law Reform Coalition include:
• Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York
• Associated General Contractors of New York State
• Business Council of New York State
• New York Farm Bureau
• National Federation of Independent Business
• Unshackle Upstate
• The New York State Builders Association

Although not unexpected, the UI Interest Assessment Surcharge bills have hit employers for the first payment on the interest owed on the $3.2 billion federal borrowing to maintain the state fund’s ability to continue benefit payments.  Averaging about $21 per worker, the $95 million interest payment is due before the end of the federal fiscal year, September 30, 2011.  The interest on any borrowing was waived in 2009 and 2010, pursuant to language in the federal stimulus bill.  Interest on all outstanding balances started to accrue at the beginning of 2011, and repayment of the principal will commence at the end of this calendar year for all tax-rated employers.  Given Congressional inaction on the President’s FY 2012 budget proposal to waive two more years of interest on outstanding UI loans, interest has resurfaced in whether the business community (which is statutorily obligated to repay both the interest and the principal) is interested in pursuing revenue bonds to repay the debt at a potentially lower overall repayment cost.  More on the unemployment insurance issue can be found in an article published earlier this year.

The State Insurance Department approved late last week a modified loss cost rate filing for workers’ compensation premiums, effective October 1, 2011, for products offered in the commercial market.  Loss costs are the actual claim expenses, for workers’ compensation coverage, established by the New York’s Insurance Department, upon recommendation from the Compensation Insurance Rating Board. Based upon New York State employers’ experience and future projections, the CIRB recommends a percentage increase or decrease in the loss costs to the Insurance Department each year.  The approved rate for the new plan year is 9.1%, exclusive of any assessment surcharges.  The Department’s decision can be found here.

Matt Glynn writes in the Buffalo News - “State lawmakers are considering altering workers’ compensation guidelines adopted last year that injured workers complain have resulted in reduced or denied medical treatment.

The debate centers on medical treatment guidelines for injured workers that the Workers’ Compensation Board adopted on Dec. 1, 2010.

Advocates for injured workers claim those guidelines should not apply retroactively to workers whose cases predate last Dec. 1, sometimes by years. They say the guidelines are interfering with care and causing confusion among health care providers.

But supporters of the guidelines say there ought to be a uniform standard of medical care for all cases in the system. And they say the guidelines help medical professionals identify whether the care patients receive is of good quality and is actually helping them restore function…

The Business Council of New York State is among the opponents of the legislation. The group argues the Workers’ Compensation board’s guidelines should apply to every case, and that their adoption was a significant part of workers’ compensation reform in 2007.

“The legislation seeks to set two different standards of care for injured workers,” said Margaret Moree, director of federal affairs for the Business Council.

Moree said the guidelines do not preclude a medical professional from seeking to extend treatment for a patient if that treatment is showing progress. And she said costs are not the only issue.”

To read the rest of the story click here.

The Business Council of New York State opposes A. 6686, which would provide a higher reimbursement rate for certain procedures than the APR-DRG inpatient hospital fee schedule adopted by the Workers’ Compensation Board. This bill is substantially similar to one vetoed by Governor Paterson in 2010, and the Veto Message No. 6795 remains valid today. Further, changes included within the recently adopted State Budget raise additional concerns with advancing this bill. This legislation does nothing to improve care or outcomes for workers’ compensation claimants; rather it proposes to provide to a very selective group of providers whose procedures utilize implantable hardware with an increased reimbursement rate — and only when these procedures are used to treat workers’ compensation claimants.

Most significantly, and quoting from the Veto Message, the basic purpose the sponsor seeks to accomplish through this bill, “have been addressed administratively.” The Workers’ Compensation Board, through Subject Number 046-396, issued in January 2010, acting within the scope of its administrative authority, accomplished what this bill seeks to do. This guidance states, “the requirement of separate reimbursement of implantable hardware and instrumentation costs will apply to spinal procedures in APR-DRG codes 23, 303, 304, 310, and 321.”

To read the rest of the bill memo click here.

Melanie Trottman writes in the Wall St. Journal (subscription-based) - “The Labor Department Tuesday withdrew a proposal that would require companies to more carefully log workplace muscle sprains and strains, the latest result of the Obama administration’s effort to respond to business concerns about federal regulation.

Employer groups had widely opposed the proposed recordkeeping change, saying it would put their members in the awkward position of defining musculoskeletal disorders they simply are not equipped to identify. They also view the proposal as a precursor to a broader ergonomics regulation.”

To read more click here.

Eric Anderson of the Times Union writes - “A growing insolvency crisis in workers’ compensation insurance, born from years of lax oversight by state regulators, is threatening to leave thousands of small businesses owing $600 million or more to New York insurance pools they trusted to pay claims from workplace death and injury.

Already, the little-publicized crisis has forced otherwise stable companies to lay off workers and curtail hiring plans during a critical point in the state’s economic recovery.

And at some point, taxpayers could be forced to pick up the tab for whatever can’t be recovered through lawsuits or other means.

State regulators got authority earlier this decade to require financial reports from so-called Group Self-Insured Trusts, private workers’ comp cooperatives formed to help employers cut insurance costs, but it was already too late for some.

New York’s Workers’ Compensation Board, which regulates the trusts, received its first audited reports in May 2003, nearly a decade after these group insurance pools first surged in popularity. Those reports showed more than a dozen trusts with financial shortfalls, according to a task force report released earlier this summer.”

To read more click here.