After a multi-year push by labor unions, San Diego County has become the first county in California to implement a controversial pension plan that allows some staff to collect their salaries and pensions at the same time.<\/p>\n
County supervisors voted Tuesday to create a deferred retirement option program, known as a DROP, for some retirement-age staffers in its Sheriff\u2019s Office, District Attorney\u2019s Office and Probation Department.<\/p>\n
Under a DROP, enrolled employees start collecting a pension but also continue to work for up to three years. During that time, their pension payments are put into a special DROP account, and when they retire, it\u2019s paid out to them in a lump sum.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is going to be a great tool to keep some of our best deputies working for the people,\u201d Supervisor Joel Anderson said.<\/p>\n
The board\u2019s unanimous vote came weeks after pension-plan actuaries confirmed the program would be cost-neutral, as state law requires.<\/p>\n
Still, such programs have drawn criticism. The city of San Diego\u2019s is seen by critics as a way for public employees to \u201cdouble-dip\u201d into taxpayer money.<\/p>\n
Others see a DROP as a way to retain experienced staff past the time they would normally retire.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy retaining our most experienced employees for additional years, this program will save the county and the taxpayers millions of dollars,\u201d said Michael O\u2019Deane, president of the San Diego County Deputy Sheriffs\u2019 Association, which first started lobbying for a DROP in 2023.<\/p>\n
For San Diego police, DROP has at times backfired for staffing needs. In 2022, the requirement that participating staff retire after five years meant the department lost dozens of veteran officers amid growing vacancies in the force.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the cost. In San Diego, a 2016 report estimated that its DROP added $149 million in new costs for city taxpayers. And on Tuesday, Joan Bracci, the county\u2019s chief financial officer, stressed that DROP will create new costs for the county.<\/p>\n
A county-commissioned study estimated that keeping DROP participants on the payroll beyond the time they would normally retire would add payroll costs totaling $15.5 million five years from its adoption and $54.4 million in 10 years.<\/p>\n
Bracci also said updating the county\u2019s IT system to account for DROP will cost $150,000, in addition to ongoing administrative costs. But those costs could be offset by savings created by the program through reduced overtime and the high price of recruiting and training new staff, she added.<\/p>\n
With Tuesday\u2019s vote, the program is set to begin on March 20.<\/p>\n
An actuarial firm hired by the county determined last year that the county\u2019s proposed DROP would not raise costs \u2014 and might even lower them \u2014 for its pension system, the San Diego County County Employees\u2019 Retirement Association, or SDCERA.<\/p>\n
Cost neutrality for pension systems is a key requirement DROPs have to hit under state law.<\/p>\n
At the meeting, Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer highlighted the DROP\u2019s cost neutrality, saying the county\u2019s plan had \u201creally significant safeguards\u201d while \u201cmaking the investments we need for our county.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the county\u2019s DROP, key provisions have allowed to it to meet state standards for cost neutrality.<\/p>\n
County employee DROP accounts cannot accrue any interest over time \u2014 an element not included in the city\u2019s DROP.<\/p>\n
And under the county\u2019s program, 75% of a participating employee\u2019s pension contributions go into the account, while 100% of the county\u2019s contribution to their pension goes to SDCERA, not DROP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a multi-year push by labor unions, San Diego County has become the first county in California to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,2558,983,2559,3,147,530,111,2557],"class_list":{"0":"post-407070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-local-politics","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}