NY State Golf Courses Enter LIRR Disability Mess

When the NY Times reported about the massive number of Long Island Rail Road employees retired due to disability, it noted how many of those retirees were playing golf in state-owned parks. Now the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation tells the Times there was no "legal justification" for retirees using free "passes intended for severely disabled people." The state has given out about 50,000 Access Passes, meant for the "deaf, developmentally disabled, require a walker or prosthetic device for mobility, have been ruled fully disabled by the Social Security Administration." but it's unclear how the LIRR retirees got the passes. There are multiple investigations into LIRR retirees' apparent abuse of disability-- Attorney General Andrew Cuomo called it a "cottage industry of fraud."