Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by zinger
Four Lancaster doctors are paying the state $50,000 for abusing the state’s pension system and being improperly listed as public employees of the Lancaster Central School District, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced Thursday.
As part of a widening investigation of doctors who provide services to public entities, Cuomo said he will attempt to determine whether 102 additional physicians across the state — and 10 others in Western New York — may be guilty of the same offense.
The four physicians from Lancaster Depew Pediatrics who provided services to Lancaster schools did so as outside contractors, and they were therefore ineligible for pension credits reserved for public employees, the attorney general said.
“New Yorkers are fed up with the systemic corruption constantly hitting them in their wallets,” Cuomo said.
“This is yet another example of taxpayer dollars too easily slipping through the cracks and into the hands of those not entitled to them.”
The Lancaster physicians are Drs. Michael D. Terranova, Mark D. Bezbatchenko, Elizabeth Davis and Michael D. Rabice.
School Superintendent Edward J. Myszka painted a picture of the four doctors that is in stark contrast to Cuomo’s description.
“They are all honorable individuals, and we continue to have a relationship with these practitioners,” he said.
Myszka said he first became aware of the attorney general’s probe when a questionnaire arrived in the district’s mail last spring. He answered it promptly and said he had heard nothing about it since, until The Buffalo News called Thursday asking about a news release on the doctors’ settlement from Cuomo’s office.
Asked what services the four doctors provided to the district, Myszka said they involved school physicals for student athletes; assistance to athletes during varsity and junior varsity football games; pre-employment physicals for teachers, administrators and civil service employees; tenure physicals for teachers; physicals for bus drivers; and physicals for students at certain grade levels.
At various times between 1985 and 2006, all four doctors from Lancaster Depew Pediatrics were listed as “employees” of the Lancaster Central School District and received employee benefits such as health insurance and pension credits that are ordinarily reserved for actual public employees.
Under the settlement announced Thursday, the doctors will collectively pay the state $50,000 and forfeit any pension system credits accrued as well as any employee contributions made into the pension system. The four are to repay $25,000 this month, $15,000 by next December and the remaining $10,000 by December 2010.
In 2006, the district increased the doctors’ compensation to $42,000, removed all of them from the payroll, ceased providing health insurance and ended the practice of reporting the doctors to the retirement system as “employees.”
Asked why this was done, Myszka told The News that “the board decided the district’s [previous practices were] not fiscally responsible and to just pay the doctors a flat fee.”
A spokesman in Cuomo’s office said the attorney general is looking into dozens of other arrangements that could be illegal. Of those, 10 are in Western New York: one each in Erie County, Orleans and Wyoming counties, three in Cattaraugus and four in Chautauqua.
