PHILADELPHIA — For nearly two decades, top city officials have argued that a generous but loosely-controlled state disability benefit meant for injured Philadelphia police officers has been an easy target for abuse.
But an audit of police spending, released Tuesday by City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart, has found that the cost to taxpayers is far steeper than previously imagined — and that between unreliable data, and bureaucratic finger-pointing, little is being done by the city or the police department to root out identify fraud among cops who claim to be too hurt to work.
Since the 2017 fiscal year, the department has spent a staggering sum on salaries of officers who have been designated "injured on duty," or IOD: $205.5 million. The annual spending on those officers reached a record high of $44 million during the 2021 fiscal year, the audit shows, and is projected to climb even higher by the end of this fiscal year to more than $50 million.
