PPA top aide to retire, with $522,183 DROP payout
Carl Ciglar, a former police lieutenant who got into politics and jumped to a top job with the Philadelphia Parking Authority, will retire next year with a six-figure pension and a $522,183 payment from the city’s deferred-retirement program, known as DROP. The Parking Authority’s executive director, Vincent J. Fenerty Jr., said Monday that Ciglar and another senior aide, Linda J. Miller, would retire in 2013 and be replaced by two other veterans at the parking agency, Corinne M. O’Connor, now the director of on-street parking, and Richard D. Dickson, the authority’s senior planning director.
Carl Ciglar, a former police lieutenant who got into politics and jumped to a top job with the Philadelphia Parking Authority, will retire next year with a six-figure pension and a $522,183 payment from the city's deferred-retirement program, known as DROP.
The Parking Authority's executive director, Vincent J. Fenerty Jr., said Monday that Ciglar and another senior aide, Linda J. Miller, would retire in 2013 and be replaced by two other veterans at the parking agency, Corinne M. O'Connor, now the director of on-street parking, and Richard D. Dickson, the authority's senior planning director.
Their salaries will jump Jan. 1, to $131,660 for O'Connor and $139,560 for Dickson, with annual step-ups over the subsequent four years.
O'Connor, a former Republican committeewoman, joined the Parking Authority in 1990. Dickson, once an aide to former U.S. Rep. Ray Lederer, joined the agency in 1983.
Ciglar, 61, spent almost 27 years on the Philadelphia police force, initially retiring as a lieutenant in 1998. He then got involved in Republican politics, serving as treasurer for several campaigns, and got a job at the Parking Authority in 2003 after a Republican takeover engineered by then-State Rep. John M. Perzel.
Within several years, Fenerty made Ciglar his right-hand man, with a salary of $166,218 — the basis for recalculating his pension, now estimated at $120,000 per year. The DROP program, which didn't exist when Ciglar was a police officer, will provide him with four years' worth of pension payments, now accumulating with 4.5 percent interest, when Ciglar leaves the PPA payroll next June.
Ciglar will be the fourth biggest DROP recipient so far, after former Council President Anna C. Verna ($584,777), former Fire Commissioner Harry Hairston ($550,773), and City Council's former budget expert, Charles McPherson ($528,032), according to figures provided by the city pension board. The current fire commissioner, Lloyd Ayers, is projected to collect $550,671 when his four-year DROP period ends in June 2014.
Linda Miller received a $250,768 DROP payment in December 2009 but was allowed to stay on because the Parking Authority said it needed her to remain on the job.
Contact Bob Warner at 215-854-5885 or warnerb@phillynews.com.