Council Opens Fall Session with DROP on Tap

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The political hot potato known as DROP was tossed about today as City Council members returned for the fall session.

KYW's Mike Dunn reports that council members opened their fall session with the formal introduction of the mayor's plan to eliminate DROP.

But the lawmakers say they need some key questions answered before they act. Council president Anna Verna said no hearings will come until the city solicitor responds to questions Verna sent back on August third:

"We will handle it as soon as we get a response from the city solicitor."

Verna's questions to the Solicitor focus on what could prove to be a pivotal question: whether City Council can simply eliminate DROP, or whether such an action must be subject to negotiations with the city worker unions.

For Mayor Nutter, that question is clear-cut -- he believes this can be done immediately by Council:

"Virtually anything created by legislation could be eliminated or changed by legislation. That's the matter at hand here."

The Mayor this summer unveiled a Boston College study that found the program has cost the city's pension fund more than $250-million over 11 years:

"The overwhelming level of evidence indicates that the city can no longer afford this program."

Council meantime also hired a Baltimore consultant to evaluate the Boston College study, so any Council hearing on DROP will be delayed until that study of the study is complete.

Democratic majority whip Darrell Clarke denied any foot-dragging:

"It's not foot-dragging. To be a responsible legislative body, you want to make sure all the facts are accurate.  If we pass something without doing our homework, we'd be extremely criticized for not doing our homework."

In a related note, Council President Verna announced that her longtime budget expert, Charles McPherson -- who retired last year under the DROP program -- is being brought back as a financial consultant under a $125,000 contract.

The mayor publicly called for the elimination of DROP in early August, and since then more than 1,000 city workers have applied. That compares with about 945 applicants for all of 2009.

DROP was enacted by Council in 1999 to encourage employees to stay longer on the job and to give managers a better sense of when they will leave.  Those who sign up for DROP are required to retire four years later.  They get a lump sum payment at that time, along with their pension, based on time of service locked in when they signed up for DROP.

In some instances, though, city workers signed up for DROP were given waivers and allowed to stay on after their retirement. Most controversial has been that some elected officials signed up for DROP, retired for a day at the end of their terms, then returned to office having been re-elected.

Six current City Council members -- Verna, Frank Rizzo, Donna Miller, Marian Tasco, Frank DiCicco and Jack Kelly -- are enrolled in DROP.  They could seek re-election.

After Thursday's Council session, Kelly said he had not yet read the mayor's DROP report because of lack of time. He said he has not yet decided whether to seek re-election.

When asked if she is planning to run for another term next year, Verna said she is also undecided. "I'm at the crossroads of my career. I just don't know what to do."

(File photo by KYW's Tony Hanson)