Retro Checks In Limbo for 300 Ex-EMS Staff

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS

Approximately 300 retroactive paychecks for former Emergency Medical Service workers are being held by the city because recipients haven't stepped forward to claim them, THE CHIEF-LEADER has learned.

CAN'T COLLECT WHAT'S DUE: Paramedic David Reeve, shown here in happier times with daughter Elizabeth, son Mark, and his deceased wife Deborah, learned last week that a paycheck in Deborah's name worth $10,000 that should have been sent to him last July now has to be reissued - after he again submits paperwork to the city proving her death.

The checks are owed to EMS members under a contract deal reached with the city in June 2006 that granted retroactive wage hikes stretching back to 2002.

'Actives' Updated in July

The city's 3,000 active EMS members got their back pay tacked on to regular payroll checks last July. But a group of retired EMS workers - curious why their payments hadn't materialized - discovered many were being held by the FDNY.

According to Marianne Pizzitola, a retired Emergency Medical Technician who formed the Uniformed FDNY EMS Retirees' Association, FDNY officials initially attributed the backlog of checks to former workers who moved and didn't provide forwarding addresses or were otherwise untraceable.

FDNY Deputy Commissioner Francis X. Gribbon during a Jan. 19 interview stated that a good-faith effort was being made to get payments out. The first priority was active members, he stressed, who had all been paid. The only checks still in FDNY possession were those sent back by the Postal Service due to changes in address, he said.

'They'll Get Their Money'

"We are not trying to keep people from being paid," he insisted. "Anyone who is owed will get their money."

Ms. Pizzitola succeeded in getting a list of 439 names of persons with unclaimed checks from the Office of Labor Relations last fall, and realized most of the money being held belonged to EMS workers who retired, died or were fired after 2002.

Through a word-of-mouth campaign and Internet searches, her organization succeeded in locating 84 people on the OLR list - all of whom said they had never been contacted by the city or the FDNY about a retro check.

Wife Was Due $10G

Among them was David Reeve, an active Paramedic whose wife, Deborah, died in March 2006 from mesothelioma, a deadly cancer her friends and family believe was contracted during her time at Ground Zero.

I got a call from a colleague in EMS who said I should check to see if my wife was owed money," said Mr. Reeve, who now holds two jobs to provide for his children, Elizabeth and Mark.

After a round of calls in late August and early September, Mr. Reeve learned that the city was holding a check totaling just under $10,000 in his wife's name.

Despite having filed numerous pieces of paperwork with several city agencies declaring himself and his children her beneficiaries - and receiving regular line-of-duty death benefit payments into his account - he was told the check couldn't be released to him.

Put Through the System

"They said they'd take it back and cut it again and then send it along, but it took two months for supervisors to approve that," Mr. Reeve said.

The Reeve family has lived at the same Bronx address for the past 12 years, and Mr. Reeve said he never received written or verbal notification that his wife's funds were waiting to be claimed.

Busy with the demands of single-parenting and work, Mr. Reeve waited several months before contacting the city again.

Last week he reached someone in the Office of Payroll Management, who confirmed to him that a check was waiting, but it was still in his wife's name.

"It's just sitting where it was four months ago, and nothing has changed," he said during a phone interview Jan. 18. "They told me to send in the same stuff I've sent to the city several times before - proof of death, spousal proof, kids information, Social Security numbers and bank accounts, and when that's processed, I can have my wife's retro pay in 30 to 60 days."

Strange Omission

Several other retired or terminated EMS members contacted by this paper shared similar stories. Former EMS Lieut. Peter Escalera, who retired a few years ago and moved to New London, Conn., said he gets regular mailings from the FDNY, but never knew he was owed a check.

"I don't know how much it's for, but if it's over $50, I want it," said Mr. Escalera, who suffers from lung disease related to 9/11.

While his retro payment hasn't appeared in the mail, he gets semi-annual orders from the FDNY's Bureau of Health Services to come into the city for medical check-ups as part of the WTC registry.

"I just got one the other day telling me to go to NYU Hospital for a lung scan to see if the scarring I've developed has gotten worse," he said. "I get all my retirement benefits and departmental mailings at this address, so I gotta figure the FDNY knows where I live."

Mr. Gribbon, when asked about Lieutenant Escalera's situation, said it was possible some individuals who moved could receive pension payouts from the city or FDNY health updates but not their retro checks because "those are completely different databases." But he reiterated that "every effort is being made to get people paid."