There is one major problem with Governor Haslam's proposed new Workers' Compensation bureaucracy; he's putting it slap in the middle of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Unfortunately, the State Comptroller's recent Single Audit Report just revealed that department is rife with "mismanagement, waste, and abuse". It seems they've overpaid $73 MILLION in unemployment compensation benefits, including payments to dead people. Wow! That's a hefty chunk of change! Moreover, they've suffered administrative delays that leave the unemployed without appeal, and - worse for the governor's stated aims, they've been overcharging employers for unemployment insurance. How business friendly is that?
In spite of these revelations from the state's own comptroller, both legislature and governor seem determined to push their radical Workers' Compensation change through. This bill will put a whole new bureaucracy of the governor's friends in charge of a system that affects employers every single day. According to the comptroller, the department's internal controls over the programs they now manage are "ineffective or non-existent". Guess what they'll do with workers' compensation claims, especially since
THE ADMINISTRATION’S BILL ADOPTS A STANDARD OF INJURY CAUSATION THAT IS MORE RESTRICTIVE THAN THE COMMON LAW IN TENNESSEE AND REQUIRES APPORTIONMENT WHICH THE COURTS OF TENNESSEE HAVE LONG RECOGNIZED AS AN IMPRACTICAL AND IMPOSSIBLE MEDICAL/LEGAL CONCLUSION.
As I have written before, this bill is both cruel and unrealistic. Now we're entrusting it to a department that can't manage it's current responsibilities properly. Governor, are you sure you are trying to help employers?
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