DN Editorial: Let DROP fall, Council

CITY COUNCIL released this week a report on the Deferred Retirement Option Plan that found that the city is losing less money with the program than an earlier Nutter administration report claimed. Great: Does this mean that another counter-study will be ordered up to dispute these findings?

The Council report, done by an auditing firm, found major problems with the calculations used by the Boston College researchers that the Nutter administration used when it found that DROP costs the city about $20 million a year. The Boston researchers acknowledged their error. The new report says that the program costs the city only about $10 million a year.

Council says it will hold DROP hearings later in the month. Please: Can we cancel these hearings? And instead, can we have hearings on why Council - given the city's budget constraints - is still considering a program that costs "only" $10 million a year? Are we that starved for diversions that we have to drag this torture out even longer?

Whatever management benefit DROP ever had died the minute the first elected official signed up, retired for a day, and took the payment. It's past time to kill it. *