“Holy guano, Batman!”

Of the 760 employees at Menard Correctional Center in the Metro East part of Illinois, 389 have filed claims.

“That’s a big pile of guano, Robin!”

Belleville News-Democrat reporters George Pawlaczky and Beth Hundsdorfer have discovered “hundreds of guards and others have filed for or received taxpayer-funded settlements for ‘repetitive trauma’ they say was mainly caused by operating heavy cell locking mechanisms.”

Most people sense that the coming Democratic Party income tax hike will be to pay for overly-generous pensions for public employees.

Batman will assist the Illinois Department of Insurance.

Now, comes this report on Menard prison guards milking the Workers Comp system.

“Records show that some repetitive trauma awards for wrist and elbow injuries totaled more than $100,000,” reads one sentence in the story.

One commenter wrote, blockquote>“And it took an article in the newspaper to expose this. What does the Dept of Insurance do? Read newspapers & wait for something to investigate. Another worthwhile govt agency.”

Another said,

“Is it any wonder why that Illinois is considered one of the most corrupt states in the country? This is a whole bunch of State employees fleecing the system. And in this situation, apparently it starts at the top with a Warden of the prison. I’m sorry, but the large volume of claims from this one place, a prison, roars very loudly: SCAM! It is garbage like this that is about to Bankrupt the State of Illinois.”

During the mid-1980’s, Workers Comp was part of the Bureau of Benefits I managed in the Department of Central Management Services. We managed to convince the Department of Corrections to put control of Workers Comp claims in the performance standards for wardens.

And it at least deserves mentioning that if Menard had been closed and its maximum security prisoners been transferred to the virtually empty and new Thomson Correctional Center, these claims would not have been filed.