Pension Problems: More Than 1/2 Of Denver Police Retirees Paid Incorrectly
By Brian Maass
DENVER (CBS4) - CBS4 has learned that a review of monthly pension payments to older Denver Police Department retirees shows that well over half have been paid incorrectly, and may have been receiving overpayments or underpayments for years.
The review obtained by CBS4 shows out of 938 Denver police "old hires," 421 were receiving overpayments of their monthly pensions, which they will not be required to repay. Another 171 were underpaid, according to the review, and 346 were receiving accurate monthly disbursements.
"Human resources has put new steps and controls in place to ensure this doesn't happen again," said Daelene Mix, a spokesperson for Denver's Department of Public Safety, which is involved in administering the Denver Police Old Hire Police Pension Plan.
Old hires are officers hired before 1978. The plan has been funded by employee contributions, state funds and revenues from a mill levy. Much of the money involved in the pension fund is public dollars.
In 2014, a review of the Denver pension plan was undertaken. There are about 1,000 former officers and their beneficiaries on the plan.
The review covered the years 1990 through 2016. That recently completed review showed significant discrepancies between what retirees were supposed to be receiving and what they had actually been getting. Some beneficiaries who had been underpaid for years have already received lump sum payouts.
One retired Captain told CBS4 of receiving a $20,000 lump sum payment in June to make up for years of underpayments.
Mike Staskin, a former detective who retired in 2004 after 34 years of service, told CBS4 he was recently informed that he had been underpaid for years.
"How did this occur? How could they mess that up?" asked Staskin. "This is such a cluster. The consensus is it's not complicated."
But Staskin said explanations from the city have been vague and uninformative.
"If they made a mistake, come clean and explain it to everybody," Staskin said.
As a result of years of underpayments, Staskin received a lump sum payment in June of about $3,300 to make up for years of being shortchanged.
In August, another $483,000 in lump sums will be paid out to retirees who have apparently been shorted for years.
Laura Wachter, Denver's Deputy Director of Safety and chairperson of Denver's old hire pension board, said the payment discrepancies can be attributed to changing ordinances and an "extremely complex" pension system.
Wachter said for the 421 retirees who received overpayments -- possibly for years -- they will not be asked to repay anything.
"Since it was an administrative error the board voted to forego the overpayments. The board did not want to harm pensioners who were not at fault," she said.
Wachter said one retiree had been overpaid $880 per month but most of the rest of the overpayments were much less -- sometimes just pennies per month. And only seven retirees had been receiving overpayments of more than $50 per month.
Wachter said she did not know what the cumulative amount was of overpayments that were being written off. Wachter said city employees had been doing the pension calculations for years, but going forward the city will outsource management of the calculations to an outside organization that specializes in the calculation of complex mathematics.
Retired Detective Dave Metzler told CBS4 he recently was told he had been overpaid $8.05 per month for years and that his monthly pension payments were being reduced to reflect what he should have been paid.
"Don't know what to think as the explanation they gave was not very informative," said Metzler. "And people attempting to check this out were not sure of the when, what or why."
He said he and other retirees have received blanket explanations for the mistaken payments, but have not received answers about their specific pensions.
Retired DPD officers under the old hire pension plan have been invited to a meeting Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. at 2105 Decatur Street to receive an explanation of what happened and how the system is being corrected.
CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass has been with the station more than 30 years uncovering waste, fraud and corruption. Follow him on Twitter @Briancbs4.
