Wow. A total of 106 city workers applied for DROP yesterday, one day after Mayor Nutter called for the retirement plan to be abolished.
And as of 3 p.m. today 84 workers had applied. Of course, applying doesn't mean you have to permanantly enter the program. There's an approval process workers must go through.
For context: a total of 945 workers enrolled in DROP in 2009 and 521 enrolled in 2008. So these kind of application numbers are well above average.
Mayor Nutter this week called on Council to abolish DROP - the Deferred Retirement Option Plan - after a study from researchers at Boston College said that the program had cost the city $258 million since its inception in 1999.
Under DROP, city workers set a retirement date up to four years in advance. At that point, their pension benefit is frozen and they start accruing pension payments in an interest-bearing account. Workers receive those payments in a lump sum when they retire, in addition to their full city pension.