The new GAO data could renew an ongoing debate over the nature of the federal injury disability program’s relationship to federal disability retirement, an issue that is a perennial sore point for managers since FECA costs are charged back to agency budgets while disability retirement costs come from Treasury funds.
The largest amount of workers’ compensation costs for federal workers paid from fiscal years 1995 to 2004 was for claims that were over five years old, the report said. Proposals have circulated in Congress for years to create a system of moving FECA recipients to disability retirement after a certain period of time, on the theory that once a substantial amount of time has passed, they are highly unlikely to ever return as federal employees and are more accurately disability retirees.
While the size of the workforce has declined, workers’ compensation costs stayed relatively consistent during the most recent 10-year period from about $1.54 billion in fiscal year 1995 to about $1.52 billion in 2004, while the compensation per claim filed during this period increased, GAO said.
It said average compensation per claim increased by three percent from fiscal 1995 to 2004 with the average payment per claim rising from $9,958 in 1995 to $10,242 in 2004.
The number of active work-related injuries has remained somewhat stable, declining from about 154,000 claims in fiscal 1995 to about 137,000 claims in fiscal year 1999, but then increasing from about 138,000 claims in fiscal 2000 to about 148,000 claims in 2004, the report said.
It said while traumatic injury claims decreased from 76,633 claims in fiscal year 1995 to 74,322 claims in fiscal 2004, traumatic injury claims as a proportion of total claims increased slightly during that time — and non-traumatic injury claims decreased by over 30 percent during that period from 8,508 claims in fiscal 1995 to 5,903 claims in 2004.
