Former worker paid $60K in pension error

ALBANY, Ga. — The city’s pension board has voted to accept a report from the trustees of the city’s pension fund which has revealed that nearly $60,000 paid out to a former city employee through their disability pension program since 1994 was paid in error.

William Skipper, a former city employee who worked six years for the city in the mid-1980s, died earlier this year after having received benefits from the city’s pension fund since he was injured in Feburary 1986.

In a presentation to the city’s pension board Thursday, the head of the city’s Risk Management Department, Veronica Wright, presented the board with a report stating that Skipper had been receiving his pension benefit — roughly $200 per month — in error since March 1994, when an administrative law judge ruled that his disability payments from the state should cease because he was determined to be in the employ of George’s Auto Sales.

At that time, Skipper had been living at the car dealership to deter break-ins in exchange for free utilities and, at least for a while, free rent.

In March 1993, The Albany Herald published an article about car dealers chasing a burglary suspect, with Skipper reportedly involved in the chase. The city inquired about the state of his disability and asked the judge, following a hearing, to stop his disability claims.

At that point the city’s payments to Skipper from its pension fund should have also stopped, City Attorney Nathan Davis said.

“That particular fund paid out to employees who were declared to be disabled and should’ve stopped when they deemed him to no longer be disabled,” Davis said. Instead, Skipper continued to receive that $200-per-month check until his death earlier this year.

City officials might not ever had known about the overpayment had Skipper’s wife not gone public with her complaint that the city was witholding her husband’s pension from her improperly in an article in a local weekly newspaper.

Skipper’s wife, Davis said, wasn’t entitled to receive that benefit because, according to the city’s pension policy, spouses are only recognized as beneficiaries if they have been married for 12 months or longer. The Skippers had been married for only 11 months, he said.

“But when that story was published, they pulled Mr. Skipper’s file to take a look and discovered that he shouldn’t have been receiving his pension benefit after 1994,” Davis said.

City Manager Alfred Lott called the incident a clear-cut case of fraud and hinted that the city may sue Skipper’s estate to get the money repaid.

Calls have been made to Skippers’ attorney, Robert Margeson, seeking comment.