ALLENTOWN., Pa. \u2013 Allentown City Council held a special meeting Wednesday to discuss a proposed amendment to the police pension fund ordinance by adding a Deferred Retirement Option Plan.<\/p>\n
A DROP program is a popular retirement benefit that allows retirement-eligible officers to retire on paper but continue working and collecting a paycheck.<\/p>\n
While an officer in the program continues working, their monthly pension payments are diverted into a special account.<\/p>\n
The DROP participation period ends after five years, after which time the officer receives a large lump sum from their accumulated pension funds, in addition to monthly pension checks.<\/p>\n
The program is widely utilized by police departments to retain experienced veteran officers for a maximum of five additional years.<\/p>\n
Sgt. Chris Matthews, president of the Queen City Fraternal Order of Police, told council the membership of the FOP has voted in favor of having a DROP and that it already exists as a signed agreement between the mayor and the FOP.<\/p>\n
However, the pension ordinance cannot be amended without the approval of council.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purpose of the DROP is again to slow the number of officers that are separating from the city while we ramp up recruiting efforts to be able to backfill the already open spots while not creating additional existing open spots,\u201d Matthews said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Councilmember Candida Affa said council is being asked to vote for something that doesn\u2019t have true numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can’t look at figures and think, well, if we do this, it’s an advantage or a disadvantage,\u201d Affa said. \u201cWe don’t have any true figures on things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m a proponent of recruiting more and using the money to get more police officers out there,\u201d she continued. \u201cIf we don’t have true figures and numbers to compare, it\u2019s very difficult for us to say, well, it could be this much or it could be that much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frank Kane, managing director, said the city is having a very difficult time recruiting new police officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, this could come close to being cost-neutral depending on how investments go and how the market goes and how our payouts go,\u201d Kane said. \u201cIt is a tool for operations. If we were to experience a mass retirement of 20 or 30 officers at the end of the year, it would be very difficult for the department to function and to provide all the services that people in Allentown expect. So that’s why the mayor has entered into this agreement.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Council President Santo Napoli said council has hired a consultant to prepare a five-year financial analysis of the city\u2019s financial position to give council information to make better-informed decisions during the budget season.<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic safety and supporting our police officers are extremely important to us, and I want to encourage continued conversations about how we can strengthen the department and address the staffing needs,\u201d Napoli said. \u201cOur responsibility is to do our due diligence and make sure we’re making decisions that are in the best interest of our residents while also supporting our city workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n
Napoli said the report is expected by mid-October.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd with that in mind, I hope everyone will respect council’s decision to pause consideration of the draft program until we have an opportunity to receive and review that analysis,\u201d Napoli said.<\/p>\n
Matthews said he strongly urges council to vote on the pension ordinance amendment sooner than later.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis contract was signed by the mayor back in February, and my members have waited very patiently for the administration to get this part of this mandatory function (council approval) resolved, as it’s the mayor’s responsibility to execute all contracts and written obligations of the city, and that’s what this is,\u201d Matthews said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd waiting until mid-October puts the officers who would be retiring at the end of the year in a very tight bind as far as the employees making the decision of what they’re going to be doing in in the new year,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Napoli said he had to push back on that request and said council needs to understand what it is doing before making the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd for us to make a decision like this prior to getting that information, I think would be not very thoughtful or prudent to our residents who are counting on us to make the best decisions possible for our budget,\u201d Napoli said.<\/p>\n
Matthews said Napoli should apologize to the 30 members of the police department who are considering retirement, since the DROP was a negotiated benefit approved by the administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN., Pa. \u2013 Allentown City Council held a special meeting Wednesday to discuss a proposed amendment to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2748,153,155,154,14935,94593,118003,26341,118006,118005,118004,14932],"class_list":["post-282744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown-city-council","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-candida-affa","tag-chris-matthews","tag-deferred-retired-option-plan","tag-drop","tag-police-pension","tag-queen-city-fraternal-order-of-police","tag-retirement-benefit","tag-santo-napoli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}